Move with hjkl

h left, j down, k up, l right — without leaving home row

Keys: h, j, k, l, Left, Down, Up, Right

h j k l move the cursor one cell at a time. Hands stay on the home row. Arrow keys also work but defeat the purpose.

Four keys to move the cursor one cell at a time:

Key Direction Mnemonic
h Left h is on the left of the home row
j Down j has a hook that points down
k Up k is right next to j; the one above
l Right l is the last of the four
Moving with hjkl

Counts work: 5j moves down five lines, 10l moves right ten characters.

Why not arrow keys?

The arrow keys also work. Vim accepts them. But they live a few inches away from the home row. Every time your fingers leave home row, you spend a beat finding it again. Over a day of editing, those beats add up.

More importantly, hjkl are right under your fingers when you are about to issue a command. dj deletes a line down. y5k yanks five lines up. The cursor keys can't combine like this — they aren't part of the grammar.

Why not arrow keys?

Reference

Key Action
h One character left
j One line down
k One line up
l One character right
{n}j n lines down (etc.)
Backspace One character left, wrapping to previous line at column 0
Space One character right, wrapping to next line at end of line
gj, gk By visual line — useful when wrap is on (deeper dive in wider-motions.line-start)

Worked example — h j k l

Move without leaving home row.

Step 1 · Start at top-left.
Start at top-left.
Step 2 · j · j — down a line.
j — down a line.
Step 3 · lll · lll — three right.
lll — three right.
Step 4 · j · j — down again.
j — down again.

▶ Try this in the simulator

See also: Word Motions, Line Motions, File Motions, WORD Motions