When Avatar: The Last Airbender premieres on Feb. 22, its titular tween protagonist Aang (Gordon Cormier) will guide fans through a vast fantastical land. It’s a world of new cultures, as four nations populate the fantasy series: the Air Nomads, the Earth Kingdom, the Water Tribes, and the Fire Nation. And, it’s a world of new powers — namely bending. 

Certain citizens of each nation can “bend” their corresponding element, or manipulate it in some way. So you can expect to see earthbenders dazzle with rocks and dirt, or firebenders ignite a blaze using nothing but their bare hands. Then there’s the once-in-a-generation Avatar, who has mastery over all four elements. In Avatar: The Last Airbender, that fated hero is Aang.  

“The experience [of portraying bending] was just so fun. I would go home and practice nonstop,” Cormier told Netflix. “On set in between takes, I’d practice. On my breaks, I’d practice. It became something I’d just do whenever I could.” 

Like Cormier, you might become even more enthralled with bending as you explore it over Avatar’s eight episodes. Luckily for you, the cast — along with showrunner Albert Kim and executive producer and director Jabbar Raisani — are ready to answer all your bendiest questions. 

Avatar: The Last Airbender The Art of Bending

What is bending in Avatar: The Last Airbender?

“Certain people in the world can manipulate elements using a power known as ‘bending,’ ” Kim told Netflix. Firebenders can bend fire, airbenders can bend air, earthbenders can bend earth, and — you guessed it — waterbenders can bend water. Not everyone is a bender in Avatar society. But those with the innate capacity can be coached and potentially strengthen their powers. 

For example, when we meet young waterbender Katara (Kiawentiio), she has been honing her skills in secret and is very much a beginner. “The only thing she really knows about waterbending is that she is one. But she is surrounded by non-benders in her little village. So she’s kind of insecure about the fact that she doesn’t know much about this part of herself,” Kiawentiio told Netflix. Over Season 1, Katara learns more about who she is, and in turn her ability to waterbend. 

However, Fire Lord Ozai (Daniel Dae Kim), leader of the Fire Nation, has always had a strong connection to his firebending. “[To him] it is the ability to manipulate fire, to subjugate, to subdue, to obliterate, to destroy. It’s pretty tough stuff for Ozai,”Daniel Dae  Kim told Netflix.  

Which martial arts inspired the bending in Avatar: The Last Airbender? 

“All four bending disciplines are based on real-life martial arts techniques, so we needed to make sure that we not only mastered those styles, but had a thorough understanding of the philosophy behind them,” Albert Kim said. Firebending is inspired by Northern Shaolin kung fu; waterbending has its roots in tai chi; earthbending is based on the grounded style of martial arts from the southern provinces of China, known as nanquan in Chinese — specifically hung ga or fut gar kung fu; and Cormier studied bagua and wushu to airbend.

Raisani worked closely with Avatar stunt coordinator Jeff Aro to develop each style of bending. “Airbending has very open palms and circular movements, while firebending has much harsher, linear movements,” Raisani told Netflix. Earthbending is “heavy,” Raisani continued, and Kiawentiio said waterbending is “fluid.” 

Dallas Liu, who portrays firebending Prince Zuko and has studied karate for years, is proud to show off the final product of all this hard work in Avatar. “All of the action sequences of me bending and doing cool flips were all me. It was a blast,” he told Netflix.  

How did the cast learn how to bend? 

The Avatar cast went to a six-week boot camp before production to get their bending abilities camera-ready. It was there that Cormier, Kiawentiio, and Liu learned the necessary martial arts discipline for their bending style.

“Gordon had to jump in and be a master at his element right away,” Kiawentiio said. After all, Aang might be destined to perfect every element as the Avatar, but he’s just an expert airbender at the start of the series. “I’m really glad that my character started as a beginner and I didn’t have to be perfect. It was really helpful for me as I learned it,” Kiawentiio added. 

Robert Falconer/Netflix

How did the Avatar: The Last Airbender team bring bending to life? 

The road to getting bending on your screen was a long one, paved with collaboration. Once stunts were figured out, the visual effects team needed to decide how elements would move through the space.  For that, they leaned on references to things in the real world. 

“Firebending was all about making it feel less like something is burning and more like they’re actually conjuring this fire, complete with smoke, sparks, and distortion,” said Raisani.

Go Behind the Scenes of Aang and King Bumi’s Fight in Avatar: The Last AirbenderSee how the elements came together in this groundbreaking (literally!) scene.

To create that effect, Raisani and VFX supervisor Marion Spates looked to flamethrowers as a source of inspiration because firebenders are “moving fire in a way with a lot of force,” Raisani told Tudum in December. Luckily, both of them had experience with flamethrowers from another Netflix show. “We both worked on Stranger Things where there was a whole flamethrower sequence in Season 4, so we had a lot of reference on hand,” said Raisani. 

Airbending presented the team with a particular conundrum since you can’t really see air move. Thankfully, Spates figured out the answer. To start, he found inspiration in F-22 aircraft and the heat distortion created by their afterburners. “We leaned into that to be one of our main ingredients,” Spates told Tudum in December. But that still wasn’t enough. To further suggest movement, they made sure that Aang’s airbending picked up whatever natural elements were in his environment, like the sand in his fight with King Bumi (Utkarsh Ambudkar) in Episode 4. “We can just pull all that sand up, which now [gives us] a lot of dimensionality to the airbending that’s happening around him,” said Spates.  

Robert Falconer/Netflix

Meanwhile, waterbending was also “really hard,” Raisani told Tudum, “because you’re trying to find ways of making water do things that are very unnatural within the world of physics that we understand on a daily basis,” like Katara’s water whip. To make waterbending look convincing to the human brain, they tried to maintain gravity, so that’s why you see some drops fall while the water is in the air, and made sure there was a current, too. “What we also found is if you don’t have a current through the water — you can see there’s a spiral movement through it — the water feels very static and tubular and it starts to look like gelatin. But by having water flow through it, you could keep that feeling of water in motion.” 

Earthbending required visual effects that made the materials look difficult to move. “We played with the idea that, as they take these boulders out of the earth, they’re actually compacting the elements that are already there,” Raisani told Netflix, because they didn’t want it to seem as though the boulders were simply waiting beneath the surface to be pulled up.  

All four elements come together in one of the standout moments of Season 1: When the spirit of Avatar Kyoshi (Yvonne Chapman) takes over Aang’s body and fights off the Fire Nation in Episode 2. Chapman, who stood on boxes during filming to highlight the height difference between Avatar Kyoshi and tween Aang in one-on-one moments, already looked every bit the warrior in the scene. But the VFX team and Raisani decided to make her appear even more formidable by allowing her to use all four bending styles in the fight. Initially, she was suppose to use just one. 

. “It was really shot with just airbending in mind,” said Raisani, who credits one of the VFX supervisors with the idea to expand the sequence. “Once we decided to [include all of the elements], we went, ‘OK, how do we introduce each form?’ The earthbending was the hardest one — and it’s in here — to bring to life. So you see her lifting these boulders out of [the ground], and just throwing them at everybody. There’s boulders and stuff that are smashing around on people, not destroying the village. But the challenge of this was taking something that was shot for airbending, reimagining it for all four forms of bending, and trying to come up with a coherent arc that introduced each form of bending and allowed for an escalation of the sequence.”

Avatar: The Last Airbender Cast Take Four Nations Sorting Quiz

What is the Master Your Element quiz? 

It’s the official quiz that helps you understand where you would belong in the world of Avatar. Imagine this: You find yourself on an unknown island and are stopped by a stranger and his cabbage cart. Do you give the man a piece of your mind or rush through the obstacle? Or, do you maybe even try to help him? Answering questions like these are the steps to understanding your place in the vast world of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

As the quiz takes you on a journey through a new land; your decisions throughout your quest reveal aspects of your personality and your corresponding nation. Are you a generous and resilient Water Tribe member, or free-spirited and altruistic like an Air Nomad? Take the Master Your Element quiz now to become the master of your own destiny (and element). Make sure you keep an eye out for some fun Easter eggs!

What nations are the Avatar castmembers in? 

In the series, Katara and Sokka (Ian Ousley) are siblings in the Water Tribe, and Dallas Liu portrays Fire Nation Prince Zuko. Then there’s Aang, who is in charge of maintaining peace all over the world through his mastery of all four elements. 

Although Cormier plays lovable pacifist Aang, his Master Your Element results suggest there’s a powerful flame flickering within the actor. Watch the video above — which also co-stars Ousley and Liu — to see what we mean. 

And explore the many nations of Avatar: The Last Airbender now on Netflix.

Avatar: The Last Airbender Trailer