Structural Jumps and Search as a Motion

Unmatched brackets: [{ and ]}#

From anywhere inside a block, [{ jumps to the opening brace and ]} to the closing one. That is how you get out of a deeply nested body without scrolling.

Sections: [[ and ]]#

]] moves forward to the next section — in C-like languages, the next top-level { in column one. [[ goes back. Rough but fast for skimming a file’s shape.

Methods: [m and ]m#

]m jumps to the start of the next method, [m to the previous one. In a long class this is the motion you actually want.

Search is a motion#

/ and ? are motions, so they take operators:

d/END<CR>        " delete from here to the next 'END'
y/}<CR>          " yank up to the next closing brace

* searches for the word under the cursor (whole word), # searches backwards. Both set the search register, so n, N and cgn all follow on from them.

There is more#

This is a sample, not the list. :h motion.txt is the full catalogue — and now you know what to look for in it.