Air Bending

[El Santo Maxican]

Airbending is written as 截氣神功 which translates as "The Divine Ability to Halt Air"

Airbending is one of the four elemental bending arts, the aerokinetic ability to control and manipulate currents of air. The peaceful Air Nomads utilized this type of bending in their everyday lives. Air is the element of freedom. The Air Nomads detached themselves from worldly problems, finding peace and freedom. Airbenders continually sought for spiritual enlightenment, and, as a result, all children born into the Air Nomads are benders. The first Airbenders learned from the Sky Bison.

Origin Point

It is said that Airbenders first learned their bending from the Flying Bison, a sacred creature in the Air Nomads' culture. The Bison typically use their massive beaver-like tail to create gusts of wind, and as the name suggests, can fly without any visible means of propulsion. It is also said that the Airbenders had borrowed the arrow mark from the Flying Bison for their tattoos. These tattoos symbolize a person's mastery of the Airbending art, and are given to a practitioner once their training is complete. Unlike other nations, all Air Nomads are born Airbenders, due to the high amount of spirituality infused in the culture.


Notable Features


Airbenders never seek a fight and they never seek to strike an opponent directly. Airbending is based on the Ba Gua style of martial arts, (also known as "circle walking" or "Eight Trigram Palm",) along with a small hint of Hsing Yi (also known as "mind heart boxing"). These martial arts feature swift, evasive maneuvers that evoke the intangibility and explosive power of wind, drawing energy from the center of the abdomen.
Ba Gua, which utilizes circle walking (the idea behind it being the act of walking the Eight Trigrams), is known for its constant circular movement, which makes it difficult for opponents to attack directly or land a blow. Since it's always maneuvering, nobody can get a solid hold-on of this maneuver. Maneuvers employ the entire body with smooth coiling and uncoiling movements, utilizing dynamic footwork, open-hand techniques, punches and throws. A common tactic is to maneuver behind an opponent and mirror their movements, preventing them from turning to face the practitioner.

The key to Airbending is flexibility, finding and following the path of least resistance. Airbending is notable for being almost entirely defensive, however it is reputed to be the most dynamic of the four bending arts. Airbenders can overwhelm many opponents at once with large and powerful attacks that could prove fatal; however due to the pacifist nature of the Air Nomads such attacks are rarely used.

Unlike other bending disciplines, Airbending is almost entirely a defensive art, similar to its practitioners and is the most dynamic of all other elements.

Alternatives

• Cloud Bending
  it's shown that (because clouds are made with water and air), a skilled Water bender or Air bender can manipulate them easily to create various shapes (used in that instance to provide a message to nearby villagers). It also has practical uses of disguise, such as coating people in clouds or riding through them in the air. It is unknown if a Water bender can perform this technique without an Air bender and vice versa.
  
  
• Amplification
  A specialized form of Airbending in which the bender is able to generate massive amplified sound waves with the help of Airbending. One possible example of this is shown when an Airbender plays music, as they are capable of sending massive sound waves throughout their areas. It can also be used to comically amplify the voice through the passage flow of air, allowing one to continually speak over time.
  

Specialized skills

Novice Level

[-] Air Manipulation
By using circular, evasive movements, Airbenders build up massive momentum; this buildup of energy is released as massive power. It also allows for wind-based counter-attacks that knock opponents off-balance, mimicking the sudden directional shifts of air currents.

[-] Air Shields
The most common defensive tactic involves circling enemies, suddenly changing direction when attacked and evading by physical movement rather than bending. However, an Airbender can still deflect as needed by throwing up gusts of air close to their bodies as a shield. This is rarely to stop attacks directly and more often pushes the attack aside and away, conserving energy and allowing them to turn the movement into an attack at the same moment. Since air can affect almost all physical objects, it can also be used to enforce the momentum of thrown objects or manipulate other objects (though requiring a higher degree of precision)

[-] Air Marbles
A bender causes two or more marbles to spin in a circle between his hands. It could be used to shoot small objects, like marbles, at very high speeds (similar to bullets).

[-]Gliding
Although all Airbenders can levitate or extend jumps via Airbending, most if not all Airbenders possess a glider for mid range flight. These hand-crafted portable wood and canvas structures can collapse into a staff for storage and as an aid when bending. In glider form, it is used in conjunction with bending to fly as long as the bender has the strength to maintain the air currents. With stronger winds, multiple people can be carried for short distances. As a normal staff, it can be used as a weapon in battle, to aid in bending, and even as a levitation aid when spun above the head like a helicopter propeller.


Practitioner Level

[-] Air Blast
A more offensive move involving a direct pulse or jet of almost solid wind from the hands or feet. The force of the attack is generated more from the bender's own power rather than assisted by momentum. This direct blast can reach further with greater accuracy and is used to inflict greater damage.

[-] Air Punch/Kick
Another more offensive move than is typical of Airbending discipline, air punches or air kicks are small, compressed formations of air that can be fired off the fists or feet of an Airbender. This is similar to many Firebending abilities and the air blast, yet in the sense that it involves the firing of compressed or solidified air at an enemy in a non-continuous fashion i.e. the bender does not create a single great stream of air.

[-] Air Swipe
The air swipe is a dual defensive and offensive technique in which an airbender conjures a crescent-shaped construct of solidified air capable of deflecting colossal projectiles (such as the catapulted flaming rocks often used by the Fire Navy ships) and sending them off-course.


Expert Level

[-] Breath of Wind
Very similar to the standard air jet but created from the mouth and lungs. It requires extremely good breath control to employ effectively. Size and focus is more easily controlled, from narrow jets that can strike targets as small as insects, to large gale force gusts capable of cooling magma into solidified rock.

[-] Air Barrier
This is a more powerful defensive technique where the entire body is surrounded by a dome of air that deflects attacks from all directions.

[-] Air Funnel
Similar to an air vortex but to a smaller scale, some inventively used this technique as a cannon by creating a small air funnel through which small rock projectiles could be entered through the top and could be fired out of the opposite end.

[-] Air Ball
An Airbender can create a compressed ball of air by moving their hands together in a circular motion. This technique has many applications such as levitating small objects or tripping opponents.


Sifu Level

[-] Air Bomb
A technique which creates a powerful, outward-moving air current in all directions around the bender. Usually performed after landing on the ground from above, this Airbending form has great concussive force and the capacity to completely blow away anything within its radius.

[-] Multiple Target Attacks
An Airbender can send large, wide-spanning waves of air towards multiple enemies with one long, sweeping motion from an Airbending staff or from the bender's limbs.

[-] Air Vortex
A spinning funnel of air of various sizes. This can be used to trap and disorient opponents or as a potent defense since it will deflect and repel any objects and can even throw them back at an opponent. In Avatar State an air vortex can reach winds up to 125 miles per hour.

[-] Air Wake
By running in a circle and instantly building huge momentum, a master Airbender can shoot a blast of compressed air shaped like the user's body at a target. This move seems to have great concussive force.


Master Level

[-] Air Blades
A more offensive move than is typical of Airbending principle, this involves a focus slicing air current that can cut through stone or timber with relative ease. This is frequently conjured with a staff rather than the body, using the narrow profile of the object to create a more focused and precise air movement. This move could prove fatal if used on an individual.

[-] Air Spout
Similar to the Water Spout, master Airbenders are able to rotate and control the direction of the Air Spout enough to levitate them off the ground and remain in the air for as long as they wish to or can maintain it.

[-] Mini-Tornado
This is a smaller scaled version of the air vortex which Airbending masters can use as a means of both combat and transport. By encircling themselves in a spiraling air current, masters can travel at high speeds and even ascend near-vertical drops.


Special Sets
[-]Enhanced Speed
Airbenders enhance their movement in battle; they can run swiftly by decreasing air resistance around them and even sprint across or run up vertical surfaces by generating a wind current behind themselves to propel them forward. They've been shown to use this to run many times faster than an average human and maintain this for very long periods, allowing them to travel long distances without gliding or jumping. When used by a skilled Airbender, this technique can enable the Airbender using it to travel at a speed almost too swift for the naked eye to be able to see properly. A master Airbender can use this technique to briefly run across water.

Air bending Spirit

Young Airbenders are raised in one of the four Air Temples, at each corner of the globe, hidden away atop mountain ranges on remote islands, where the strong breeze helps their Airbending. The Northern and Southern Air Temples are exclusively male, and staffed by Airbender monks, who instruct young Benders in their art. According to reports, the Eastern and Western Air Temples are exclusively female.

An Airbender is declared a Master once he/she has fully mastered the 36 tiers of Airbending and/or when he/she creates a new Airbending technique. Airbenders who have mastered the element are marked as such by blue tattoos striping along the head and limbs, terminating in an arrow on the forehead, backs of the hands, and the tops of the feet. Male monks sport completely shaven heads, and female Airbenders shave their foreheads, but they leave the back of their hair uncut.

Though this ritual is probably not exclusive to Air Nomadic culture, when the Avatar reincarnation is to be an Air Nomad, the Air Monks test Airbender children to see if they are the reincarnation of the Avatar by asking them to select toys out of thousands. If the child selects the toys used in previous incarnations, known as the four Avatar Relics, the Avatar has been found. Traditionally, knowledge of his or her identity as Avatar is kept from the child until age sixteen. (A similar test is used by Tibetan Buddhist monks when a reincarnated Lama is expected.)

Air Nomads generally espouse a philosophy of conflict avoidance and respect for all forms of life. This accounts for Airbending's stress on defensive maneuvers and its apparent lack of fatal finishing attacks. Due to the spirituality of the Air Nomads in accordance to the size of its population, every Air Nomad retains bending abilities. The Air Nomads have the smallest population but the most increased spirituality while benders in general make up only a small percentage of the larger, more populous nations, as shown throughout the series.

Airbenders emphasize intuition and imagination; to an Airbender, there is always another path to take, as air flows wherever it can.

I would love to thank all of the lovely people at the Avatar Wikipedia for their insightful knowledge and breakdown of the series, as it is most useful to the forum and understanding the world of avatar itself. I thank each and every one of you who've went out of your way to improve the article.