Enchanted… I’ll give you my answer, but I’m not sure it will be of much help to you 
I pretty much watch 11 markets. All U.S. stock index futures, 6A, 6B, 6C, 6E, 6J, and 6S. I also trade gold, and oil.
Generally, I scalp a fair amount. I watch for very smalll time supply or demand zones…particularly those off of daily highs and lows, globex highs and lows…etc. I also will watch larger term time frames, and I oftentimes have a “vision” of what to expect. As in “euro just dropped 1000 pips, hit a significant daily demand level… falling knife is done, Price action bounce off the level indicates further upward momentum…so every decent breakout or drop-base-rise even on a 1 min or 5 min chart i will take. manage trade by reducing exposure as 1 min or 5 min makes swing highs… wait for price to tell me move is over, genearlly will do so when coming off another technical level, or news is a catalyst. Then, if we had a nice parabolic style move INTO that technical reversal zone…i’ll switch to short…at least to the point of the breakout…”
etc…etc…etc.
I use COT info to watch for record overbought or oversold conditions…and then know how to recognize true selling or buying exhaustion. Want an example? GBP… QE announcement, and it sold off VERY strong = shaking out all remaining willing sellers…but then rebounds completely in 1 day?? when the news is bad, but the market ignores this…it means the market is VERY strong. Coming on the heels of a 1200 pip drop, by the price action, current trend direction, fundamental strength compared to the EUR, and COT data…i now feel pretty strongly that GBP will rebound another 300 - 500 pips upwards.
Based on this…i’ll look to take long trades off of lesser technical levels, focusing on some important times (around london open, around U.S. open, around asian open), and try to catch the swing for the session. Once i see what I believe is the swing, based on distance to pivots, and price action, as well as correlated markets price action, I will scalp it up off of rather insignficant retracements to previous breakout points, or previous swing lows. I look for volume in the futures market on a 1 min chart using volume spread analysis concepts to determine when a level is valid…ie: price and volume indicate that we really do have more buy orders at a level i’m looking at.
I take a long trade in GBP, i reduce risk obsessively, and i take profits fast. Rinse. Repeat. I’ll take 2 - 40 trades in a day…usually sit around 6 - 20.
you mentioned hours to become good. really good. I’ve probably put in close to 8,500 by now. I’ve been trading since 2005. Successful since end of 2009.
If i were you…my best suggestion would be to look up VSA…volume spread analysis. Watch whatever market you want (recommend euro, oil, gold, gbp), and watch for price to hit a level of previous support or resistance. watch for volume to spike up…but price to not continue the trend. Like a pinbar…something like this. I look to go the other way.
Basically, if price is trending…i look for it to come to a level of support or resistance, i look for volume to start rising…but the trend to start slowing, or failing to push further. At that point… sometimes confirmed by further reversal price action, and sometimes not if i see a real failure for trend to continue, I’ll take a trade in the opposite direction.
In summary? study volume concepts, watch smaller time frames… practice on demo reducing risk as quickly as possible, and do this for several thousand hours 
Experience my friend. By the way… you seem like you have a lot to offer the babypips community, especially being an XLT student. Congratulations! I think most will welcome any contribution you could make.
Jay
P.S. open any futures chart on a 1 minute basis…and look to see the highest volume spikes of the day. you will often find that these happen to occur at market turning points. Particularly if these high volume spikes occur when the trend has pushed a little bit…and is hitting a technical level. I would also recommend watching ICT’s videos. he has the most popular thread on here…and his students are doing well…with 1 - 3 trades a day. good luck!