You don't navigate in insert mode. This is why its important to have some alternative to esc. Personally I use alt-anyKey to exit insert mode and do that key co

You don't navigate in insert mode. This is why its important to have some alternative to esc. Personally I use alt-anyKey to exit insert mode and do that key command in normal mode. In some terminals, this will be the basic function. Using gvim or a more modern terminal will require manual rebinding. jk are usefull for navigating lines, especially with 'dd' 'yy' and 'p'. hl are for navigating either within a word, or when dealing with a syntactic mess where the standard movements aren't very useful. Outside that, bwe and their capital variants are great. In text, so are ( and ). Beyond that, I'd look into text objects. Things like ciw ca) or ci] are great for just doing what you want to do. (Change the word below the cursor, change an entire () expression, or change the inside of a [ expression).