Recreation in the World of Avatar

There are a large number of recreational activities in the World of Avatar, created for both simple enjoyment and fierce competition. These range from 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. 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 a circle that 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. Being that 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 was a popular game played by the Air Nomads. The main objective of the game was to force a ball into an opponent's goal while flying on a sky bison. Championships were held for the game at the Northern Air Temple.

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 fourteen, 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, he and the two others will be awarded a mark from the boy's 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, and the Mark of the Trusted is a curved mark.

Ice marbles
Ice marbles is a game played by the citizens of the Northern Water Tribe. 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.

Penguin sledding


Penguin sledding is a children's pastime in which one mounts the back of an otter penguin, and sleds down hills of snow and through natural channels carved through glaciers. It is thoroughly enjoyed by both the rider and the "sled".

Earth Rumble
This underground earthbending tournament is held in a giant earthen arena in Gaoling. The Earth Rumble competitions feature flamboyant fighters with theatrical stage names, each trying to verbally intimidate their opponent before knocking the other out of the ring with earthbending. The competition is a popular Earth Kingdom attraction; the stands at Earth Rumble VI are typically full except for the front rows, which are in danger of being pummeled by flying rocks and losing competitors.

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 by the lower-class citizens in the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se.

Elephant koi riding
The elephant koi is a fish that resides in the Kyoshi Island bay. These gigantic koi are very friendly and do not mind taking on a passenger. Being able to hold one's 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, the rider goes down with it. Aang rode an elephant koi at least twice in his life.

Gliding
At the Northern Air Temple, the mechanist designed and built gliders based off the ones the Air Nomads used one hundred years ago. His gliders did not require airbending to fly, instead using a system of pipes that delivered hot air updrafts around the temple. One pilot would demonstrate a series of fancy or difficult maneuvers, and challenge another pilot to match them.

The wingspans of the mechanist's gliders were longer than those the Air Nomads used, and were rectangular to maximize lift. On the back of the glider under the tail wing is a leg 'hammock' for the pilot's feet. Teo's unique glider was connected to the footrest and the top of his wheelchair, and used two levers for steering.

Omashu mail system slide


The mail delivery system in the Earth Kingdom's city of Omashu contains miles of tubes and chutes. Though not an official city sport, Bumi invented this game a hundred years ago, as he perceived that the mail system could be used as a huge slide.

Redemption


A reconstructed version of the Gan Jin tribe's Redemption ritual, Aang described this game to persuade the Gan Jin and Zhang tribes to end their one hundred year feud. The story explains the events that transpired between the tribes' founding patriarchs, Jin Wei and Wei Jin. The sacred crystal orb was just a regular ball, and the Eastern and Western gates were goal posts. Jin Wei was running with the ball when he fumbled it. Wei Jin picked it up and began heading toward a goal post, but he stepped out of bounds. By rule, he was put in a penalty box for two minutes, not twenty years, as the Gan Jin had believed. Game-wise, this is a typical "run the ball to the goal" game, but with panda referees, and when a player scores a goal, everyone yells, "Redemption!" It is possible, however, that the game was made up, as Aang even claimed to have made up the story, and no one else seemed to recall the game.

Gambling


There are several popular types of gambling seen in the Fire Nation, including the shell game, where the dealer places a rock under one of three cups and shuffles them around, challenging the player to guess which cup contains the rock. Toph was able to fix the game by using her seismic sense to see where the rock was and prevent the dealer from fixing the game himself.

The "dice" game is similar to craps. Toph was able to use earthbending to ensure the dice landed in the combination on which she had bet.

Another game consists of a player using a hammer to hit a base that throws a puck upwards along a track. At the top is a bell. The game is won when the player strikes the base hard enough to ring the bell with the puck.

Hide and explode
Hide and explode is a children's game similar to hide and seek, but with a twist. After playing a game of hide and explode, Aang's clothes were covered in burns, meaning that it more than likely involves fire, but not necessarily firebending since Aang had not yet learned it.

Kuai ball
Kuai ball is a sport similar to volleyball, but played with both hands and feet. It is usually played on the beach and is popular among vacationers on Ember Island. A background in martial arts is beneficial in order to be competent against opponents.

Street Bender
Street Bender is a fighting game featured in the Ember Island Arcade. Two players face each other using warrior dolls to simulate combat. A game costs one silver piece, and the players use two metal rods to maneuver their dolls. Pressing the button on the rods causes the dolls to attack, and firebending into the metal rods gives the player a super attack. Each hit costs the player one of his or her three life bars, and the player who loses all of his or her life bars loses the game.

Pro-bending


Pro-bending is an extremely popular sport in Republic City, spread throughout radio broadcast to the rest of the world. Gameplay involves two teams of three benders, and the objective of the sport is to gain as much territory within the ring as possible within a set amount of time during each round, or, alternatively, to push the opposing team over the edge of the ring. There is mention of a jackpot in connection with pro-bending, likely the prize in the championship tournament.

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 elemental bending symbols: airbending, waterbending, firebending, or earthbending, and in the upper right corner is a different element symbol. The game was 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 forty-card kabufuda deck, which has four suits of ten cards each, numbered one through ten.

Four Nations
This is a two-player tile game. Each player randomly selects five tiles from a pool of all tiles currently available to him or her; on each tile there are two of the four nation symbols, or a special black Avatar tile, which acts as a wildcard.

Pai Sho


Pai Sho is a two-player strategy game, bearing resemblance to both Chinese chess and checkers. A popular pastime enjoyed by people around the world, Pai Sho is also used by the secretive Order of the White Lotus in order to identify its members by constructing a lotus pattern on the board, as shown by Iroh. The most famous Pai Sho tile is the white lotus.

"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 be presumed that it uses the Avatar Cycle, which follows the order: water, earth, fire, and air. Water would beat earth, earth beats fire, as shown by Aang and Sokka, fire beats air, and air beats water. It is very likely that each hand symbol 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.

During one of Aang's flashbacks, two Air Nomads are seen 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.

Yoga
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 upcoming invasion of the Fire Nation.