I was just wondering, there are those dummy/mannequin things in the Fighter's Guild and in other places. Can you actually use these to raise your characters blade skill and stuff? The same goes for those targets you always see NPCs shooting at, can you improve your marksman skill on them?

I'm sorry if this is a dumb question, or if it's answered in the manual or something. I actually never had the manual as I got the game pre-owned lol.

Not without a mod. However, shooting arrows at a target will wear out your bow at the same rate as shooting a live target, so you can raise your Armorer skill afterward. I don't believe a sword, axe or mace gets worn by beating on a dummy, though.

Aw, that's a shame! It would have been good if I could've raised my character's skills that way. I'm afraid I have the game for Xbox, so no mods for me lol. Thanks for the answer!

As strange as it may seem, it is true

And you cannot raise your Destruction skill by blasting the targets with fire (darnitall) but the remaining schools have spells you can spam-cast to raise your skills (summon bound dagger for conjuring for instance).

You can make a fire,or some other kind of,damge self to train destruction.

Also for the OP if you get the fighters stronghold DLC there is a combat trainer you can buy that you can spar with as much as you want.It's a good way to train a combat skill or blocking and also learn some strategies against differant types of blades.
The DLC is available through xbox live and doesn't cost that many microsoft points,I think around 400 but I'm not sure.