While I certainly respect the opinions of the two posters before me, and I agree with parts of it, I think my opinion conflicts with theirs.
You don't teach a kid to drive with a Ferrari. They will make mistakes that are inevitable, and it doesn't make sense to screw up expensive equipment if you don't have to.
I have been machine for 4ish years now, and as recently as 3 months ago I have cut into the jaws of my vise. My machine is CNCd and I jogged the Z down instead of jogging the X axis. I don't think I was being careless, I just made a simple mistake. When I first started, I made many more mistakes much more frequently. My equipment was cheap and my mistakes were inexpensive. That is inevitable, and that is how you learn.
Depending on how much the Kurt vise cost and how much disposable income you have, I might consider picking up a cheap one to learn with. I have seen some of those vises going for $1000+. I just picked up some decent 4" vises for $85. If I had a nice Kurt vice 4 years ago, I would park it on a shelf and use one of the cheap ones for a little while until I got the hang of things.
Just my 2 cents.