Exactly this. Git is pretty easy; at the same time, using Git isn't. If you skip learning the easy mental model, all you have left is hard interface, so in result you just struggle, because you can't even rely on your intuition to get how things work there.
Git's interface is far, far more complicated than its model. Personally I spent years not learning about the model because I thought it would be as complicated as the interface. When I realised that the model is basically as simple as what you get when you view the "network" on GitHub then I started loving Git.