if you want to get into mapping, take my advice, start as soon as you can, when you know there aint going to be much r/l stuff bothering you, and all the rest of it.
Your first map, probaly your first 3 maps you make should ALL be mess around maps, where you are just placing stuff there for the hell of it, putting tanks inside cooling towers + w/e the hell that pops into your head, just to get to grips with the basic tools. Thou before you start putting tanks inside cooling towers, you should go though the first basic tuts etc, but do them on your mess around map.
What ever you do, DO NOT plan on making your first release go public, espicaly if this is the first time for your first game mapping etc. A talented CS mapper who might want to make a map for another game might get away with it first time, as he would have learnt most of the basics from the other editors and will just have to apply his knowledge in a different way. People who make a map first time round thinking they are going to release it, 90% of the time fail. I hate to pick up on anyone but that "clan training" map that was being made by a guy totally new to the editor dropped it before releasing any screen shots of it etc. sorry to who ever it is for using you as an example, but read this post if you see it will porblay help you too.
Here is a basic list of the tuts you should do in order:
http://realitymod.com/forum/t20862-wher ... gspan.html
always work with your first maps on as smaller maps possible (256x2) so the editor runs as fast as possible and speeds up your learning, you aint going to run out of space and its less complicated on a smaller map
don't even think about making a map for PR until you have got to grips with the editor, and how BF2 maps work. Only map for vbf2 at the start as there are lots of things that just make it complicated when mapping for pr
Hope that helps
