What's in your .vimrc file?
tsally: Do this to prevent yourself from learning the arrow keys while learning:  map <down> <nop>
  map <left> <nop>
  map <right> <nop>
  map <up> <nop>   

  imap <down> <nop>
  imap <left> <nop>
  imap <right> <nop>
  imap <up> <nop> 

(There's actually a recently reported bug that causes the up arrow to do some strange things, but you get the idea).