system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Avatar Legend of Korra] How did humans learn bending, after all ? Was it by the animals, for example, flying bisons ? If so, can a non bender learn bending ?

In Book 2 Episode 8, the Lion Turtles say that they are not going to give the power of the elements to humans anymore.

So, it seems that after that, humans learned bending from animals, as is somewhat explained in Legend of Aang.

But, if that's the case, it seems that humans couldn't bend before, and learned it by watching the animals, as flying bisons, etc.

Does that means that a non bender nowadays can learn bending by watching those animals ?
gpt
The Lion Turtles granted humans the *ability* to bend. This was then presumably passed down through the generations, getting diluted through the genepool. (Although we see a set of identical twins with only one bender, so some of it's just luck)

You can't just *become* a bender without something ridiculous like the Convergence happening. 

You can study them, though. Learning from the passion of the dragons, the flow of the tides, the freedom of the sky bisons, and the sturdiness of the badgermoles is what taught humans *how* to bend. Like, properly. Forms and poses and stances. 

Like all martial arts, these were worked and changed over the centuries, but those lucky enough to know the true forms of the bending are generally the most powerful. 

Zuko and Aang learn from the dragons, Katara masters her bending while in the highly spiritual Northern Tribe, Toph uses her own unique fighting style derived from the tremor-sense of the badgermoles, and she's powerful enough to do the impossible and bend metal. And there's, well, every airbender from before the genocide. All of them were benders, and all of them were eventually masters of their craft due to their highly spiritual nature of their society and their bond with their bison.