No Lestliness, you're thinking of just moving the pivot. He wants to adjust the orientation of the node, meaning the XYZ axis.
Ya know haiku, I know how to do it I just can't think of it off hand right now because it's not something I do very often. I'm not in front of Maya at the moment, but when I am I'll hit ya back on it.
Dave Baer
Professor of Digital Arts
Digital Media Arts College
Boca Raton, Florida
dbaer@dmac.edu