Only a few more keystrokes is: :sh ENTER or for more control over which shell, or to run a shell with any arguments, or even to run any command w/ or w/o args

Only a few more keystrokes is: :sh ENTER or for more control over which shell, or to run a shell with any arguments, or even to run any command w/ or w/o args: :!bash :!bash -o vi :!bash some_script.sh :!some_command some args and after any of those, just press Ctrl-D or type exit ENTER to return to the vim session. Very fast and easy to do. I use it all the time.