I find that certain skills level very naturally with gameplay and others do not. Maybe I am playing wrong but leveling armor skills and restoration seem unnatural and burdensome.

Restoration is one you'll have grind. It's a pain. Armor skills is all about getting hit.

Acrobatics and Athletics go up pretty fast!

Like titan said, restoration is a pain in the nord nuts to level, while armor skills are pretty hard to increase. Unless of course you're looking to grind it up by standing there and letting w/e enemy bash the [censored] outta you.

I tend to buy training in restoration to level it

Training and grinding is not for role players!

Correct. It's for jump players. The roll players are too low to ask for training.

I've been playing for hundreds of hours and am... Maybe lvl 20?

Sadly not many skills level up from "Wandering around exclaiming how pretty things are."

Having said that, I find that Restoration levels more naturally than some other magic skills cos I use it to heal a lot. Blacksmithing/Enchanting are of course a pain.

Y'know, I don't think any skills really level "naturally". Shield and weapons I guess?

not sure if sarcasm but I dont see how buying training is against roleplaying?

I think lockpicking has the best leveling arch. It is a useful skill and you can increase it generously by taking on more difficult locks. Yet, it doesn't max too quickly. I think it is the perfectly balanced skill.

aside from buying lessons for skills I will use. I don't buy lessons for skills I don't use. I won't buy restoration lessons when playing a non-magic character for example. I seem to max out on natural leveling through progressing the game around lv 40-45. By then the skills my character DOES use have reached a pretty high lv, if not 100% at that point. And I'm fine with that.

I'm a role player so grinding just seems very immersive breaking and stupid. Just my 2 cents worth.

I will that as an archer most of the time, armor skill increase takes forever!

Well, grinding okay.

But why not training?

Surely, a character could get paid lessons from another without breaking the RP?

When I say level naturally I mean that they level when playing well. I feel like I have to play unstrategically and take a lot of damage to level armor and restoration.