Yeah, he was basically keeping him down with all of his life force. It would have been a more heroic ending if he had died there, but then Goku saves his ass.
Still, I loved that moment just for the fact that it made one of the much weaker fighters useful, for once. One reason for why I liked Dragon Ball significantly better than DBZ was because most of the side-characters were actaully useful, and we got to see more of their personalities. However, in DBZ, they basically made it so that everybody except for the Saiyans, and the main villains of the arc, were completely useless, and not worth giving any screen-time to. It was nice to see Tien make a stand and actually show some signicance after such a long time. And Kurama voice acting for him in the dub only made it sound all the more epic.
Although, I have actually seen that scene subbed, and I must say that his original voice actor really brought out his character much better than the dub. Its a shame that he passed away a couple of years ago.