I find knitting very therapeutic, I suppose mainly because I learned very young. I can work quite complicated patterns while watching the TV. I usually take my knitting with me wherever I go. Including the pub!!
Knitting is worked on at least two needles. These can be short, med or long. They usually have a point at one end and a bobble at the other ( to stop the stitches falling of the end) and have a round cylindrical shape. ( I have noticed lately that some are made with a square shape. ) They can be made of plastic, steel, wood or bamboo. Choose which you find most suitable for you. Although they are all very smooth, the steel needles are more slippery than the wooden ones. If your tension is tight or your yarn quite fluffy you may be better off with steel. So in reverse, if your tension is loose or your yarn is very silky you might prefer to use wooden or bamboo needles.
Conventional knitting is worked flat, backwards and forwards, however, you can also knit in the round. Items worked in the round typically are things like socks, or a tubular scarf. Some jumpers are worked in the round as a large tube up to the armholes. To do this you would use either four or five double pointed needles and distribute your stitches evenly across three or four and use the spare needle to knit across the stitches on each needle in turn. Alternatively you can use a circular needle. These have a short needle each end joined in the middle with a cable. They can be of fixed length or you can obtain interchangeable ones. They normally come in a set of several sizes of needle ends and several different lengths of cable. I often use a circular needle for normal flat knitting as i find it much easier to carry around with me. They are less likely to puncture holes in bags and also the stitches are less likely to slip off.
There are many styles of holding the needles and yarn. It doesn’t really matter which way you choose, the end result is the same. It is just down to your personal preference. It will probably come down to the style of the person who teaches you. I use the English (thrown) way most of the time but the Continental way is sometimes useful for use in conjunction with the English way when using two or more colours.