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[jamesadelong]

Every action (like stabbing and dodging) gives experience. I don't know if it has to be successful at the action though.
This is why bashing naked goblins with wooden sword is the best training (they last a long while before they die), and sparring the worst (real combat is probably way faster than normal sparring and thus consists of more actions*).
*This is just a guess though ^^

The wiki mentions that using an archery target gains experience on bolt fired as opposed to bolt hit. One could logically extroplate this out to mean that every sword swing or attempted bite too.

[lavenders2]

I have started playing again as of now. It's hilarious because I forgot heaps of things, and focused too hard on my military not getting enough xp. Using dwarf therapist, I discovered that they were getting experience, but at a really slow rate. So I continued to focus on my military and forgot a few things:
1. I embarked with a hunter with proficient skill in marksdwarf. I could have made the hunter my militia captain, and made a army of crossbowmen.
2. With all the migrants coming in, I didn't speed up booze production. I was getting a few plump helmets, but I was relying on only plump helmets for both food and drink. This meant my dwarfs kept eating the plump helmets before I had a chance to brew them.
3. I constantly had 40+ dwarfs idle with about 52 population.

This caused everybody in my fort to become thirsty, but it was far too late to save them. Fortunately, only a few died because a caravan came, and had heaps of plump helmets. I traded them 3 steel bars, because I was desperate. However, the few that died were mostly the starting 7. This caused my expedition leader (his nickname was Mactavish from Modern Warfare 2) to throw a tantrum, killing one of my engineers in a fist fight. Three were injured, requesting water in the middle of winter, when all the water was frozen. Two others threw tantrums, but didn't hurt anybody. Eventually, everyone calmed down. Now, I have most of my miners killed, miasma everywhere, and a incompetent military who would be lucky to hit a squirrel (let alone kill it). The fort is stabilised to some extent, so I am going to try training on wildlife. I have iron armor equipped, with iron swords, or fists. I didn't realise this game could get fun (it felt really grindy and boring most of the time).

[i874236951]

2. With all the migrants coming in, I didn't speed up booze production.
3. I constantly had 40+ dwarfs idle with about 52 population.

Put more dwarves on growing and brewing and plant gathering tasks, even if they don't have skills in them already.  You may also want to Prepare for the Journey Carefully... and bring a lot more seeds and/or drinks.

[The Button]

If your parent civilization is at war with the elves then Instead of an elven caravan arriving in the spring an ambush or invasion will arrive.  Because they use wooden and cloth armor your dwarves will cut them down easily and the wooden weapons of the elves will bounce off of metal armor.  The only thing to be worried about really is getting pincushioned by the elvish archers and flanked by their war beasts because they bring many jaguars, leopards, lions, and bears.  That being said I used 6 of my seven starting dwarves as my first squad  (the 7th was a doctor/ leader) and gave them soldier skills instead of civillian skills and used them to mine out and haul a basic soil level storage centre and dormitory.  Once the first migrant wave arrived I was able to activate the sqaud and they began training.  Because their fighting skills already had a decent start they were able to handle the elvish ambshes easily and gained vast amounst of expierience.  Within a couple of years they were swordmasters.

[celem]

Worth mentioning.  If you use local wildlife to train your young militia (an excellent idea) then its a good idea to send a crossbow dwarf or two with them when they go out to kill.

Otherwise you get the annoying situation where the animal is faster than the dwarves and just kites them all over the map (to the benny hill show theme).  Stick a bone bolt in it and your guys should catch it in moments.

You can also use the caverns to train troops.  This usually leads to a higher turnover of troops (deaths) if your guys are really new.  There are a couple of vanilla cavern creatures (besides FBs) that will happily kill legends in steel (jabberer in particular).

If you use one of these to get a bit of experience on your men then you should find their demonstrations become more effective (they teach better as they know more) and sparring should be more common (total noobs are reluctant to spar)

[Fredd]

When an individual has no order for a month, or is involved in a months order where you set a min order(3 out of 4) selected, and he is 4, that dwarf will individually train(weapon train) at a barracks, if he has no job. There is a waiting period where he will wait for a job, once its up, will go individual train. The waiting period on the Active schedule is much less than on the Inactive schedule. So if you turn off that dwarves hauling labor, and other labors, will weapon train more.
 I will give future draftee peasants pump op labor, just until they become novice in it, then turn off the pumps, and draft them.
 If you have the time(hiding behind the gates in terror), set up a basic training squad. This is the only time I will use danger rooms. Have a dwarf with basic military and a decent teacher skills, assign them to a danger room, armored up. First season is to train armor user skill. At this stage do not have them equipped with either a sword or weapon. The armor user skill does not seem to help with defense, but does give the trooper good speed. Lowers encumbrance from armor. Next season equip with a shield, to train up shield skill. Then next season, drop the shield, add the weapon you want them to use. When they are in the danger room, will parry with their weapon, which will increase weapon skill. Last season of the year, reequip with a shield, let them keep the weapon. For all the months that year, will also be receiving lessons from the militia commander. Which he will also be getting danger room experiance, and teacher skills. By the end of the year, the soldiers should have decent military skills, so you either start a new squad with the trainees, or several, and assign them a barracks beside the danger room. Now draft some new soldiers for the basic training squad, and repeat above.

[Psieye]

My 2 threads on this research topic have already been linked. I'm going to repeat one of my conclusions from there: if you want to see dwarves learn how to fight from demonstrations, I suggest you go to the raws and delete punches, kicks and bites from dwarf creature definitions and optionally add in some natural skill for learning. The latter because I view the education system to be incomplete - once we have schools and apprenticeships, then I can see military lectures being good.

[katana]

This caused my expedition leader (his nickname was Mactavish from Modern Warfare 2) to throw a tantrum

Probably angry because he wasn't a soap maker.

Anyway, I've had varying experiences, although 2 dwarves per squad seems to be many times better than any other. In one of my 31.18 forts, I had four dwarves training from year two in a squad, they were barely novices by the time we had goblin sieges. However, a squad of two macedwarves (one novice, one no skill on draft) were legendary. But it doesn't mean that two-person squads are the only way to get decent training. In secrettomb III, katana the swordsdwarf had trained from the very beginning, and was legendary by the end of the first year, along but bowie and dexter were ahead of him. Another time, a one-dwarf squad produced nothing but a novice...

[krenshala]

Most of this is in posts from others, but from my experience four dwarves with zero experience can train up to level 4+ in six months of sparring.  If you provide them with a (training) weapon and shield before armor they will learn lots of blocking and dodge as they gain weapon skills.

In my latest fortress I was able to defeat four-to-one odds after nine months of sparring with literally zero injuries to my four dwarves.  15 of 16 elves with wooden weapons and armor died to my four iron spear wielding, iron mail & helm wearing dwarves that had reached level 5 or 6 in speardwarf according to Therapist.

[UristMcHuman]

I don't have Dwarf Therapist, and with my woodcutters, I usually put one point into axeman at embark. Just in case. And, I also come up with new military uniforms besides the leather, metal and archer ones. One (my militia uniform) consists of merely a wood shield and a melee weapon of the conscript's choice. And the clothes he's wearing. My Scout uniform consists of a pair of pig tail pants. Nothing else. Weapon a training spear (to function as a hiking pole, basically). Crap against things that can hit back, but better than no weapon at all. My other soldiers include Swordsmen, armed with iron chain mail and sword, iron buckler Spearmen, with greaves instead of chain pants and no gauntlets, but they get a full sized shield and iron spear, Knights, children of high rank nobles armed with cave spider silk underclothes (sheep wool if CSs can't be found, rope reeds if wool can't be had) and steel armour, and two weapons: steel spear and steel sword. Hopefully, if a uniform has more than one weapon, the extra weapon can be put in the backpack. A last soldier, and the type of only one squad will be made, will be Priests, wearing cloth robes, tunics and pants, leather cloak, hood and shoes, wearing a wood buckler and brandishing an Iron Mace. The priest squad leader will be known as the 'high priest'. I will build a temple of stone with a pool of water in the middle, to the God of Water, or magma, to the Blood God.

[Broseph Stalin]

If you have genesis training dummies are your best friend. Put a "train with..." task on permanent repeat (you'll need two or three training weapons because dwarves cancel the job when your only training weapon is being taken back to the stockpile) side effect of that is that your civilians will probably end up more powerful than your soldiers.

[Jiokuy]

Note: most of this is carried on from the old days when you could make super-dwarves.

I run a Sparta style fortress. All dwarves are "encouraged" to "enlist" in the military for no less than 2 years or until legendary. Non enlisted dwarves are used as haulers and cannon fodder (corpse recovery) . Following Basic Service a dwarf may hold a Craft position.
Required legendary skills:
Basic: Weapon Skill, Dodge, 2 Ranks Pump OP, 4 Ranks Swimming
Advanced: Basic + Shield User, Armor User, 4 Ranks Pump OP
Captain: Advanced + Swimming, Mining/Woodcutting, 6 Ranks Pump OP
General: Captain + Mining/Woodcutting, Pump OP, Teacher

Only Captain+ Dwarves are career, these dwarves teach lesser dwarves.

How I train the skills:
Swimming: station in 5/7 Water
Pump Operator: pump water from aquifer to aquifer
Combat Skills: aforementioned killing prisoners/wild life; danger room ( emergency ); training by Captains and Generals.

I believe in authority = butkicking and dwarves with these skill tend to have higher stats.

I've got 10 Pages of this if you want more.