Speaking as someone with a hot air rework station and no experience soldering SOICs, I can make a whole bunch of melted crap in 5 minutes all while burning my fingers.

5-minutes sounds insane to me, but I know it's accurate (the key being "experience").

Any tips for learning how to do this sort of thing with proficiency? How long does it take to become that proficient? What kind of coating/weirdness would present a problem? I'm asking for a bit OT reasons -- it's always been something I've wanted to learn/teach my kids.