[asksol]

I use hjkl consistently in vim and in the shell. Just think about how long it takes you to move your fingers to the cursor keys. You should spend some effort getting used to it, as using hjkl means you can keep your hands in the middle of the keyboard. I have also never had any problems with strain, and I suspect this is part of the reason.

[Narishma]

How do you use them in the shell?

[lloeki]

    set -o vi           # bash
    bindkey -v          # zsh
    set editing-mode vi # ~/.inputrc i.e readline