With our rotation it's important that we pull from the hip, we want to pull the hip bone right into the back of the seat and we want to bring a chest and shoulders around with the hip. This torso rotation of the body allows us to use more of our Obliques (our side abdominals)
When it comes to the hip pull, we don't want you just pulling the hip in for the sake of it, just pulling it back with no purpose. The idea of the hip pull and using the leg muscles is to really squeeze through the hip and turn the pelvis 45 degrees which will help rotate your torso. The hip pull initiates the torso rotation.
It is important to keep both heels are on the foot plate, when you stroke on the right side there will be more pressure through the right heel as you pull the right hip back and rotate and when you stroke on the left side there will be more pressure on the left heel as you pull the left hip bone back and rotate. When you pull from the hip the leg will go straight and the back of the knee will touch the hump below in the surf ski. If the back of the knee touches the hump too early in the stroke your foot plate length is too long, if the back of your knee doesn’t touch the hump below at all your leg length is too short.