I don't think those are "bad" habits, to me it seems like you've already found your own way of using your editor.
You seem aware that there's an alternative way of doing the things you want, and seems like you've tried doing things the alternative way, but it "doesn't stick" with you.
You don't really have to start using the most absolutely 100% optimal way of achieving something in the least amount of keystrokes (unless that's actually your goal). As long as your editor doesn't get in the way, I consider it a win already.
So I don't think you're "losing" anything. If the alternative way really was something that actually benefited you, you'd have probably picked it up by now if you actually considered it better than your current habits.
For example:
> 1. instead of doing 4j I might do jjjj
> 2. if I'm in the middle of a word and want to change it, I'll do bcw instead if ciw
> 3. if I want to copy 3 lines, I'll do Shift-V+jjj+ESC, instead of just 3yy
If you want to copy all the body of a 100+ line function, I bet you probably do something like `Vi{Y` (or similar), even if it slows you down a little, because you know the slight pause is still better compared to mashing the `j` key 100 times.
Yes, you can probably do it like `yi{`, but the difference doesn't matter (especially once one of them is in muscle memory), and it's just preference.
Even something like `V50j50jjjj` for 103 lines (with the "50" being picked arbitrarily) is already a win.
You seem aware that there's an alternative way of doing the things you want, and seems like you've tried doing things the alternative way, but it "doesn't stick" with you.
You don't really have to start using the most absolutely 100% optimal way of achieving something in the least amount of keystrokes (unless that's actually your goal). As long as your editor doesn't get in the way, I consider it a win already.
So I don't think you're "losing" anything. If the alternative way really was something that actually benefited you, you'd have probably picked it up by now if you actually considered it better than your current habits.
For example:
> 1. instead of doing 4j I might do jjjj
> 2. if I'm in the middle of a word and want to change it, I'll do bcw instead if ciw
> 3. if I want to copy 3 lines, I'll do Shift-V+jjj+ESC, instead of just 3yy
If you want to copy all the body of a 100+ line function, I bet you probably do something like `Vi{Y` (or similar), even if it slows you down a little, because you know the slight pause is still better compared to mashing the `j` key 100 times.
Yes, you can probably do it like `yi{`, but the difference doesn't matter (especially once one of them is in muscle memory), and it's just preference.
Even something like `V50j50jjjj` for 103 lines (with the "50" being picked arbitrarily) is already a win.