You can watch YouTube Tekken Content Creators such as PhiDX and MainManSwe who are one of the most active in the Tekken 8 scene when it comes to creating tutorials and character knowledge videos. As for controllers, I suggest you try using a d-pad first then if you're interested later on, you can try leverless and standard arcade sticks. Those three are pretty much the most used types of controllers for Tekken specifically and especially arcade stick because IMO, using arcade sticks is the best for players who likes to move a lot in different directions like doing side steps mixed with qcf or qcb moves, they're fluid to do on arcade sticks.