Recreation in the World of Avatar

There are a large number of sports and games in the World of Avatar, created for both simple enjoyment and fierce competition. These range from the physically demanding sports such as the Air Nomads' Airball or the Southern Water Tribe's Ice Dodging to games like Pai Sho that challenge the mind.

Many games of a particular nation incorporate that nation's native bending element into the game. For example, Airbending is utilized for Airball, and Earthbending for Earth Soccer.

Airball


Played on a field of evenly spaced vertical poles, airball is a popular sport with the objective of scoring points by shooting a ball into a goal. The aforementioned goal is like a circle and spins when hit. One scores a point by either leaping from pole to pole until one is able to simply toss the ball in or by Airbending the ball and causing it to ricochet and eventually enter the goal. As the game is greatly dependent on one's Airbending skills, if any of the players are non-Airbenders, the sport became rather one-sided and gives the Airbenders an unfair advantage.

Bison Polo
Bison Polo is believed to be a variation of regular polo, with players riding their Flying Bison instead of a horse.

Penguin Sledding


Penguin Sledding is a pastime activity for children where one mounts the back of an Otter-Penguin, and sleds down hills of snow, and through natural channels carved through glaciers. It is a lot of fun for both the rider, and the Otter-Penguin.

Ice Dodging
Ice Dodging is a rite of passage for young men in the Southern Water Tribe. When a young boy reaches the age of 14, his father takes him along with two others in the tribe, and lets the boy captain the boat through a series of icebergs that are difficult to maneuver through. If the boy manages to steer through, the three of them will be awarded a mark from the boys father. The mark with a crescent moon is the mark of the brave. The mark with a curved line and a dot underneath is the mark of the wise. The mark of the trusted is a curved mark.

Ice Marbles
Ice Marbles is a game played by The Northern Water Tribe people, and possibly the Southern Water Tribe people. The game is never shown being played, but it is noted that Sangok wished he could play ice marbles instead of attending his Waterbending training.

Earth Soccer


Earth Soccer is a game played just like soccer, but with Earthbending to guide and move the ball. Earth Soccer, being a somewhat gritty sport, is commonly played in the Outer Ring (lower class) of Ba Sing Se.

Elephant Koi Riding
The Elephant Koi is a fish in the Kyoshi Island bay. These gigantic koi are very friendly and don't mind taking on a passenger. Being able to hold your breath is a must, as is keeping an eye out for the Unagi, a monstrous-sized eel; if the koi gets eaten by the Unagi, it's taking you down with it. Aang rode on an Elephant Koi twice at Kyoshi Island bay.

Redemption
A reconstructed version of the Gan Jin tribe's Redemption ritual, Aang invented this game up to persuade the Gan Jin and Zhang tribes to stopping their 100-year feud. This game explains what "really happened" to the tribes' founding patriarchs Jin Wei and Wei Jin on that fateful day. They were playing a game. The Sacred Orb was just a regular ball, and the Great Eastern and Western gates were the goal posts. Jin Wei was running with the ball when he fumbled it. Wei Jin picked it up and began running the other way, but he went out of bounds. Because of that, he was put in a penalty box for two minutes, not twenty years. Gamewise, this is your typical "get the ball to the goal" game, except you can run with the ball, and there are panda referees. When you get the ball to the goal, everyone yells "Redemption"! It is possible, however, that the game is made up, as Aang made up the story, and no one else seemed to know what it was.

Gliders
Enhanced versions of the Airbender gliders, these new gliders were made for non-airbenders by the Mechanist. The gliders are used in the Northern Air Temple, occupied by people of the Earth Kingdom. The wingspan is longer and in the shape of a rectangle to help maintain lift. On the back of the glider under the tail wing is a leg 'hammock' for the pilot's feet. Teo's chair uses a glider that is similar to the Airbender's design. This glider connects to the footrest and top of his chair, and uses two levers for steering. However because they can't Airbend, pipes outside of the Northern Air Temple are constantly pumping hot air currents to keep the gliders afloat.

Omashu Mail System
It's actually the delivery system inside the Earth Kingdom's City of Omashu, containing miles and miles of tubes and chutes. Technically it's not an official city sport. Bumi invented this game a hundred years ago; he thought that the mail system could be used like a huge slide.

Earth Rumble VI
This underground Earthbending Tournament is literally held underground in a giant earthen arena in Gaoling. The Earth Rumble competitions are similar to real world professional wrestling -- extravagant fighters with unique names and skills fight each other in matches. The competition is a popular Earth Kingdom attraction, and the stands are always full except for the front rows, which are constantly demolished and pummeled from flying rocks.

Kuai Ball
Kuai Ball is a sport similar to volleyball, but played with the feet. It is usually played on the beach and very popular with the vacationers on Ember Island. A background in the martial arts is beneficial when playing this sport. There is a game played in Korea similar to Kuai ball, but the creators were not aware of this when they came up with it for the show.

Gambling


In the World of Avatar, there are some types of gambling seen in The Runaway: The Shell Game, the first game played by Toph when she earned lots of money using Earthbending, by seeing where the rock was and preventing the dealer from removing it; The "Dice" Game, played with types of die, in which Toph uses Earthbending to make sure the dice land with the proper combinations, and the Force Game, which consists of a hammer hitting a base that indicates the strength with which the player hit it.

Hide and Explode
Hide and Explode is a children's game mentioned in The Headband. After playing a game of "Hide-and-Explode", Aang's clothes were covered in burns, meaning that it more than likely involves Firebending. It is obviously a play on the real world game, Hide and Seek.

Pai Sho
Pai Sho is a two-player strategy game, bearing resemblance to both Chinese chess and checkers. Pai Sho is also used by the Order of the White Lotus to identify its members.

"Rock, Paper, Scissors"-Like Game ("Water, Earth, Fire, Air"-Game)
The name of this game is never given, but it bears a great resemblance to Rock, Paper, Scissors, except that it uses the four elements. As shown by Aang and Sokka's game, Earth beats Fire.

If Earth beats Fire, it can almost be sure that it uses the Avatar Cycle, which are in the order: Water, Earth, Fire, and Air. It is very likely that each hand symbols is made by one of the typical moves of the Bending Arts like the clenched fist, which is a frequent Earthbending movement. The hand position for Fire, however, seems to represent the element itself, more.

It is also shown during a flashback of Aang's, that two of the air nomads are playing this game and in a tie, both hold out their hands perpendicular to the ground. This seems to be air, since they are airbenders and would favor this element, and because this is a common airbending tornado technique.

Card Game
This game seems similar to solitaire. The cards are the size of hanafuda cards. On each of the card faces is one of the element bending symbols: Airbending, Waterbending, Firebending, or Earthbending, and in the upper right corner is a different element symbol. The game is played by Iroh and by Katara and Sokka ; it can be played by one or two people. The setup of the cards is similar to the 40-card kabufuda deck, which have four suits of 10 cards each, numbered 1 through 10.

Yoga
The yoga is a type of exercise and a natural therapy used for meditation, relaxation and medical benefits like stress reduction; it has many types of positions and respiration techniques. Yoga can be practiced next to steams; Katara and Aang practiced yoga inside of a steaming cave when Aang was stressed and restless because of the coming invasion of the Fire Nation.