I suppose vim emulation also works if the emulation plugin is good.
The point is to make the switch and stick to it even though you will be slower for a while. And spend the time to look for better approaches when you feel like you are repeating yourself. (Just like you get that DRY itch to refactor when repeating the same code snippet a few times)
In my opinion the only way to learn vim is to fully commit to it: Use it as your only editor and every time you hit a wall, spend the time to learn and unblock yourself. Productivity will take a serious hit for weeks, likely months.
I did this 10 years ago and never looked back. Although in the last years I have evolved to an 80/20 JetBrains/vim split. Using the excellent IdeaVIM plugin to bring all my vim skills and configs to a full IDE.
Kotlin has type inference as well so typically you only write types in function signatures. It's rare that you write a type in a function body. Coupled with good IDE support for showing you the type of x in `var x = myFunc()` when you need it.
The point is to make the switch and stick to it even though you will be slower for a while. And spend the time to look for better approaches when you feel like you are repeating yourself. (Just like you get that DRY itch to refactor when repeating the same code snippet a few times)