Definitely good advice. First of all, take lessons. Like he said you get to trash the instructor's stuff and not yours which is easy to do. Also, although flying a kite looks fairly straight forward, its wrought with danger if not done properly. Now that I look back, I could have seriously injured myself if I didn't take lessons. I usually came out of each lesson sore, and sometimes a little scraped up. Would have been much worse if I was alone. In the Tampa/St Pete section of this forum, there is a recent thread from Tom Stock who's been riding for years getting worked over a little the other day. He has experience, so he was able to keep safe. Without that experience, it could have been bad.
Another reason you don't want to get gear yet is as soon as you finish the lessons, you're immediately gonna be dissatisfied with what you bought and want new gear. My stuffs a year old and I want more. Save your money for lessons first, then for gear. You'll be happier in the long run.
Again, check out the Tampa/StPete section for local instructors and come down here to learn on the weekends. We have an abundance of instructors. Also check out
www.tbka.org.
Good luck,
Richard