Welcome to kiteboarding! Best advice, forget about buying gear before taking some quality pro lessons. You will get some time to try the instructors gear at his risk, this stuff is easy to damage when you are new, and learn first person what you need. The odds of selecting a good setup without some training aren't all that great. My first board was a Hyperlight, long in the past. As a rule you want less rocker for a good kiteboard. Also, learning on your own is not a great way to go these days with so many instructors out there. Some reasons why this is a good idea appear at:
http://fksa.org/showthread.php?t=2071
Flying is easy to do as well. Would you advise learning to fly on your own? If not, why not? There are a number of parallels.