The Last Airbender's Most Difficult Bending Style Revealed By Aang Star

One bending technique is not like the others.

Avatar: The Last Airbender star Gordon Cormier, who plays Aang, has revealed the most difficult bending style to master while working on the show. Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2 is now streaming on Netflix, adapting the second part of the animated series, titled “Book Two: Earth,” into live-action. The new episodes follow Aang as he continues training to master all four elements. Having learned about waterbending in season 1, the follow-up focuses on him and Team Avatar’s journey through the Earth Kingdom, meeting a blind earthbending named Toph who becomes his next teacher.

In an interview with ScreenRant‘s Grant Hermanns for our cover story about the show’s return, Cormier revealed which form of bending was most difficult to physically portray onscreen. For the Aang actor, waterbending was the most difficult, prompting him to get help from Kiawentiio, who plays Katara, so he could master the way it was supposed to look onscreen. He explained how waterbending’s connection to real-world Tai Chi was harder to get right than the other forms of bending, which are associated with their own martial arts.

Check out what Cormier had to say below:

ScreenRant: It’s crazy to think that it’s been two years between seasons. I feel like every form of bending brings a different physicality to it. It brings different hand movements, and everything like that. Did you have to train different in terms of physicality to portray the waterbending and the earthbending this season, compared to the airbending?

Gordon Cormier: Yes, absolutely. Waterbending, it’s always been a struggle for me, but I always ended up getting it on the day. It’s that very calm, flowing Tai Chi stuff that Kiawentiio is phenomenal at. Talking about what you’re saying earlier, about her being the one to teach me, Katara taught me how to waterbend, but Kiawentiio also kind of did. I was learning from the doubles and the trainers and all the stunt team, but on set you don’t have a stunt person standing beside you. You have Kiawentiio. So I remember on the day we’d be shooting the sequence, and whenever I’d have to waterbend, in between takes, she’d be like, “Hey, do you want advice or what?” And I’d be like, “Yeah, yeah, give it to me.” She’d be like, “Just lift your hand like this way a little bit more.” I’d be like, “Thanks, I appreciate it.” And then I would forget. [Laughs] But it was really great having her there. It almost felt like Gordon got to learn from Kiawentiio just as much as Aang got to learn from Katara, which almost helped me picture what it would be like to learn from Katara, which was really awesome. But so far as training goes, there was a lot of training, honestly. Tai Chi is much harder than you would think. You think, “Oh, well, you’re just moving your hands and it’s all soft.” But no, it’s much deeper than that. Your legs burn. Talking about horse stances, Tai Chi is difficult. I don’t know how she does it, especially because it’s her only element. She’s always sitting in a bow stance, or something, never catching a break. I’m over here just tricking and doing flips or something. It’s not a workout, though, like hers is. It’s like holding a wall sit. You ever hold a wall sit before?

ScreenRant: I haven’t, no.

Gordon Cormier: If you sit on a wall with your back against the wall and you bend your knees to 90 degrees, I can barely hold that for a minute. It’s like she does that for the whole 17-hour shooting day that she works. So, that’s impressive.

Alongside his testimony that waterbending is the most difficult form of bending, Cormier explained how different earthbending was when it came time for season 2. He called it a dream come true to learn the bending style, which, in the real world, is based on Hung Gar, known for its full-body movement and stances. The actor gave credit to his trainer, Miya Cech, while explaining just how excited he was to learn all the various forms of bending across every season of the show:

ScreenRant: That is super impressive and I’m sure requires a whole nother level of training. Coming into this season, we get to explore the Earth Kingdom a litle bit more, as was the case in the series, as well. What was one of the things you were most excited about getting to explore in the Earth Kingdom, as well as just season 2 as a whole?

Gordon Cormier: Learning to earthbend has been something I’ve been dying to do since season 1. Matter of fact, I remember during season 1 bootcamp, I was trying to convince them to teach me some earthy stuff, just because I thought it was so cool. They would do this thing where they were picturing what Haru would be doing eventually when he showed up. But they would put their fingers like this, which formed almost an L, but with their middle finger and index up. I remember just sitting in the corner watching them being like, “Oh, this is a cool shape. Oh, I could do this.” And it was almost like a little 12-year-old dream come true when Miya [Cech] showed up to set, and all of a sudden they’re like, “All right, so you could start learning now.” It was pretty cool, but earthbending was a lot of fun. Same thing with learning from Kiawentiio waterbending. I feel like I almost had the same experience with Miya. She’d always be coaching me through things on set. She would help me out. We would train together sometimes, but lots of elements, lots of learning.

Every character in Avatar: The Last Airbender has an important fighting style, with benders being unique. Each form of bending is inspired by a real-world form of martial arts: Tai Chi for waterbending, Hung Gar for earthbending, Northern Shaolin for firebending, and Bagua for airbending. Cormier’s training for learning how to bend was, essentially, learning how to do moves from multiple forms of real-life martial arts at once. And, according to him, Tai Chi and waterbending were some of the most difficult moves to master.

Credit: Katie Yu/Netflix

Since Avatar: The Last Airbender season 1 ended with Aang accepting his role as the Avatar, there’s likely going to be plenty of more waterbending scenes with him involved going forward. As for his earthbending training, Toph will be showing him the skill and technique he needs to master it too. Aang does plenty of bending across the seven new episodes of the series, something that showcases his skill in all forms, despite the especially difficult waterbending.

With one season left, Avatar: The Last Airbender has yet to focus on Aang learning firebending, something that will be vital to how the last part of the story unfolds. Since Cormier’s training for his final form of bending will be saved for season 3, it seems we won’t know his perspective for some time. But waterbending being the most difficult means the other forms are somewhat smoother sailing, while still requiring plenty of effort to master.