Network engineer getting started with Vim and bird2

I'm a network engineer with over 10 years of experience running Cisco and Juniper networks.

I have some sysadmin skills, for example running DNS servers, RADIUS servers etc, and use debian / ubuntu daily.

I've recently started using the bird2 routing daemon on debian, editing config files in vim. I'm not a programmer, I can't write code. Using bird2 feels very much like a programming language compared to Junos/IOS.

I guess my question is, is it just me that finds this difficult to configure and understand the syntax as an experienced network engineer, not a programmer? Can anybody recommend any vim plugins to make configuring bird config files easier? I'm just using the arrows on my keyboard to navigate, and I feel really slow configuring everything.