Airbending

Airbending is a fictional martial art and elemental manipulation within the Avatar universe, most prominently featured in Avatar: The Last Airbender and its sequel series The Legend of Korra. It is one of the four bending arts, taught to practitioners of the Air Nomads and occasionally to others, and is associated with the element of air and the ideals of freedom and nonviolence. The Avatar can bend all four elements, with airbending typically emphasizing speed, evasion, and mobility.

Airbending techniques manipulate the surrounding air to create gusts, blasts, shields, and currents. Mastery focuses on breathing, body angling, and flowing movements more than raw power. Common applications include deflecting projectiles, creating air blasts to stun or push opponents, riding air currents for flight or rapid travel, and creating protective air barriers. Some advanced forms allow for levitation or temporary flight using concentrated air pressure, and innovative practitioners in later eras developed devices like air gliders or air scoots.

Culturally, airbending draws from Air Nomad philosophy, which stresses pacifism, detachment, and harmony with nature. Training emphasizes mobility, balance, and turning one's breathing into a tool for control rather than force. The style favors indirect, evasive tactics over frontal assault, though it can be used defensively or offensively when necessary.

In the series, notable airbenders include Aang, the Avatar, as well as later generations such as Tenzin and Jinora, who help revive and evolve the Air Nation in the world after the end of the Hundred Year War. The art evolves in The Legend of Korra, incorporating modernization and urban contexts while retaining its core emphasis on air as a flexible, dynamic element.