Arrive with useful information
Confirm the schedule, group, outfit and reception point with the club. Arriving a little before the start allows you to identify the places and indicate that you are discovering the practice. Present the adaptations you need to the teacher, without waiting for an exercise to become difficult to follow. Entry, storage and greeting habits vary between dojos: observing then asking avoids guessing.
A session has benchmarks
Welcome, preparation, technical study and return to calm can punctuate the course, but their order is not a universal program. Above all, identify who is giving the instructions, where to stand and how to stop. A beginner does not have to remember all the Japanese words from the first session. Understanding an action and its limit is more useful than reciting an announcement without knowing what it asks for.
Learn with a partner
Announce that you are starting out and check roles before starting. A more experienced partner can help understand the organization; it must not impose an unasked for difficulty on you. If in doubt about distance, contact or number of repetitions, stop the exchange and ask for clarification. The greeting demonstrates mutual attention, but the agreement on the exercise must also be concrete.
Evaluate your first experience
After the lesson, write down a word learned, an action understood and a question. A first session provides information on reception and instructions, not on your definitive aptitude for karate. The feeling of being clumsy is learning information; it does not constitute a note. Ask how the initiation is going and choose a simple objective for the next lesson.
Check understanding
Do you need to know Japanese before starting?
See answer
No. Vocabulary is gradually built with the gestures and situations encountered.