Are you using evil mode? It seems to be suggested by the spacemacs docs.
Emacs keybindings are burned into my brain at this point, but if I had to do it again, I would probably go with spacemacs. I think modal editing is probably superior.
I'd recommend Spacemacs (even if you're not using evil) if you're new to Emacs and want to see how different and powerful a fully customized Emacs is when compared to the bare-bones experience of stock Emacs.