@lilben42: The only bit that was an assumption was the part that I said was an assumption.
It took him about 2.5 seconds to remove the breath from her lungs. That is timeable. The time it takes to suffocate someone after that is inconsequential when disregarding external forces such as other benders.
Because if you take someone's breath away, you're taking away their ability to function. People can hold their breath for 2-5 minutes, depending on fitness, and that affords them time to do whatever they need to do within that time should the situation call for it, because their lungs have a healthy store of oxygen, much more than the arterial system can take in any one cycle.
But you take their breath away, they're essentially functionless. The only oxygen then still in the body is what is in the blood, and at any given time, half of your blood is deoxygenated. Meaning that an average woman will have about 1.5ltrs of oxygenated blood still in her system at this point. And assuming she has an average percentage solution of hemoglobin in her blood stream, she has 304.95ml of oxygen in her cardiovascular system.
Working muscles, i.e. the muscles she would be using to run towards him, or launch some sort of attack, take 3 times as much oxygen as resting muscles. Resting cardiac output is about 5 litres per minute, giving someone about 18 seconds of normal function at a rested rate before systems start shutting down, if they only have access to the 1.5ltrs of oxygenated blood. Active Cardiac output is 20-25 litres per minute, giving someone 4.5-3.6 seconds of normal function at an active rate, if they only have access to the 1.5ltrs of oxygenated blood.
There is a reason you breath so heavily when exercising, even if you're an Olympiad.
So, in a fight, she would be in active state, meaning she'd be pumping 20+ litres of blood per minute, giving her a generous 4-5 seconds before she passes out due to complete lack of oxygenation. And that isn't even getting into the winding factor. Have you ever been winded? The sheer shock of expelling air that you weren't intending to expel incapacitates you. usually for a lot longer than 4-5 seconds, and that's with the ability to breath in more oxygen, which your body will start telling you to do at an increased rate because it thinks it's running out and the sympathetic nerves are demanding an increase in oxygen intake. Hence why winded people often pant so heavily.
People are just dismissing this because it's not as flashy or imposing as lightning, nor as exotic as blood bending. But in my opinion, this is the single most OP form of bending we've seen. It doesn't take particularly long to achieve it, no longer than lightning, and it requires no external juice like a full moon. This is something any accomplished air bender could theoretically do at any given time, and it literally gives their opponents mere seconds to react before they're physically unable to. Do me a favour, breath out completely, get rid of all the air in your lungs, and then try walking. See how far you get before you absolutely need to take a breath. Then imagine you can't take a breath, and how much panic that would cause you.
As for Zuko, he had air in his lungs. Maybe not much, but enough. 2 Fire bending masters have explicitly stated that Fire bending power comes from the breath, you take that away and they're powerless.
I'd also like to add that I imagine that this is the technique Gyatzo used on the troop of Fire Bender corpses found around his body. Just a guess, but it would make perfect sense that someone noted as the greatest living airbender during his lifetime would not only be able to do as Zaheer did, but to multiple people too.
That one is an assumption.
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