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[TheYakuza]

I have a squad of 10 dwarfs who regularly spar and train and get lessons from their leader, but they aren't getting better in any of their skills. I gave them all axes but they are still dabbling in everything years after. How long does it take or am i doing something wrong? Thanks.

[Telgin]

If their skills are very low (i.e. dabbling like you said), they'll often get skill gains faster by doing individual combat drills instead of regular training.  Just put them in a squad and set the squad to inactive.  The more motivated members will go do individual drills in the barracks when they would otherwise go on break.

Once they get up to better than novice, you can try turning them back on to training like usual.

Another thing to consider is maybe lowering the number of dwarves you require for their orders.  Do you have this set to 10/10, or some lower number? I've never tested it personally, but supposedly setting this to a lower number like 7/10 will get training sessions to start earlier since they don't have to wait forever for everyone to show up.

[TheYakuza]

Thanks a ton, ill lower the amount and have them set to inactive for now.

[FuzzyZergling]

It also helps to make several smaller squads, rather than one large one.

[robertheinrich]

If you want to push it you could use a danger room:
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Danger_room

Make sure you donīt send female soldiers with infants there, it will make them unhappy. Although with decent rooms and lavish meals and enough booze they recover quite fast. Young siblings seem to be a bit less forgiving, at least in my case. Well, I just killed off 5 babies... one of the moms was upset for a few months but she is fine now. The older brother is still unhappy. But thatīs life.

[Fredd]

You can also keep them on active schedule, just adjust the yearly schedule. I set my rookies to train 1 month, no orders for next two months. Repeat till they gain weapon skills, then adjust active schedule to alternate between no order, train.
 Turning off their hauling labors will cause more individual training, since there is less work to do. The demonstrations aren't that bad on train order months, they do help, but the recruits need weapon training(individual combat) early on.

[Flying Dice]

Typically the best schedule is to set a minimum of 2 dwarves training, which will increase the chances of sparring, which is the best way to increase military skills apart from dangerrooms and actual combat.

[Loud Whispers]

which will increase the chances of sparring

You reach a point where they only spar. And even before that point, as long as you have teachers this isn't even a minor problem

[Naryar]

Catch flesh balls in the caverns, order your military to attack them with blunt weapons or bad edge weapons. Problem solved.

wait actually that doesn't help defensive stats. Hey, just catch wild, prolific, not very dangerous egg-laying animals (like crundles. Crocodilians are unsuited), breed them and release your military periodically on them.

So you have an unending source of organic material and training dummies.

[GoldenShadow]

How do you catch and breed Krundles? I know how to catch them in cage traps and pit them. But how do you breed them?

[Loud Whispers]

How do you catch and breed Krundles? I know how to catch them in cage traps and pit them. But how do you breed them?

You don't breed them :|

Otherwise, just let them run around your fort. I don't think they'll breed, but that would be enough.