I don't think I ever did that, but I do have another suggestion that I did for a long while, along the same "start gently" mentality: Use gvim

It not only has menus, but the shortcuts on the right side of each menu item aren't special - the they're the same commands you'd just type into vim normally. I picked up a bunch from those, but in particular I remember folding being one I didn't even know existed in vim until using it in one of the menus.