How do you train?

Training. We all need it. If you have a license, then its your responsibility to teach your Pokemon how to defend itself and you from those in the wild. Even if you're not a league trainer, accidentally wandering into an aggressive Pokemon's nest isn't exactly the thing you want an inexperienced partner to encounter. I mean, that's why we're obligated to challenge one another on contact, yeah? It's to encourage us who strive to make our Pokemon stronger, so that they can protect us and we can form greater bonds with them.

But battling one another isn't the only way to train. And, while nothing beats hands-on experience, making sure your Pokemon knows how to use its attacks is pretty key to utilizing it in battle, especially if you don't have any stronger partners to help you out if things get rough with the newbie.

So how do you train? Do you practice with your friends? Help out the community by clearing out small nests of nuisance Pokemon? As much as I think Rattatta are cute, I hate them going through my trash at night.

Me, when my Charmeleon Embyr was just a 'mander, I'd set up little straw dummies for her to practice her scratch and ember attacks on. They weren't moving targets, but they got the important job done, mainly helping her focus the energy she needed to turn her little claw swipes into actual, Normal-infused Scratch attacks.

Rookie here. My Totodile and Shinx seem to be naturals. I haven't had to teach them anything yet. I think it's because 1. Chomper (Toto) was my starter. I would assume that starters receive some sort of training before they're given to trainers. 2. Lux (Shinx) was the oldest of a small clan of Shinx. He had to protect them all by himself, so I think he had to learn to survive on the fly, rather than receiving training by humans.

As far as I know, Lux can use Spark and Chomper can use Bite and Water Gun. I suppose I'll have to see what else they know. From reading up on lower level Pokemon, I'd assume they also know basic attacks such as Scratch, Tackle, Tail Whip, or Leer. My Charmander, Fireball, however, I have no clue. I only very recently acquired it, so I'll have to check it out. It did fight off a Pinsir a very long time ago (tl;dr: it saved me when I was a kid), and I vaguely remember some sort of Fire attack... perhaps Ember?

Anyone have any basic tips on training outside of battle? I think I'll try setting up targets for them like you did with your Embyr, but beyond that, I'm lost. Practice battles maybe?

Pinsirs are not easy foes to take on with a charmander that only knows ember. You may want to get Fireball's parentage checked. It's very possible in inherited a flamethrower attack from its parents. In fact, unless they were raised in one of the Starter centers that breeds them at low levels to keep their moves equal to other starters, then it's very likely it's inherited more than that.

In fact, I caught my Altaria Aria when she was just a Swablu right below Blackthorne during a swarm. It turns out she knew Rage, possibly because Blackthorne is rife with Dragon types who can breed with Altaria, and dragons are well known for their rages.

But I'm off topic; to help you train, you could try the straw dummies or have Fireball practice with Chomper if Chomper doesn't mind taking a few hits and you have some burn ointment or at the very least some rawst berries (bite off the stem and apply the open fruit to a burn. The juices act as an emergency ointment. If you can't take the bitter flavor, cutting it open any other way works too).

Just keep in mind you WILL have to take it into a real battle sooner or later. Practice battles with friends or in your local gym are what I recommend just to get the Pokemon used to following your orders. It also helps you build confidence; when you're just starting out, you don't have the experience to be 100% sure of all your decisions, and Pokemon pick up on a lack of confidence right away. Some will even disobey if they think they can do it better!

But you heard all of this when you got your license I'm sure. To reiterate: practice battles with friends, schedule training sessions with your local or nearest gym, and set up non-combat exercises that build teamwork between you and your partners. I find a good swim always helps me and Embyr warm up for a tough match.

Im not much of a battler so most of my training involves various activities such as jogging, martial arts, kendo, and sharp shooting. Sometimes i'll have a friendly match against a trainer passing through town. Perhaps the most unorthadox training is with my Haunter. He seems to have it in his head that Wii sports is his favorite exercise.

I'm not big on the battle scene, I mean I'll head up to the light house every week and have some good battles for a few hours as long as my pokemon are up for it. Normally when it's raining most of them are more interested in lounging around in the rain, and on hot days they'd rather go down to the sea. But, for the very least it's very important for -me- to stay in good shape for work cause appearance is the second most important thing really. But I try to keep them in shape as well. Kamen always comes down to the gym with me and we're even taking a dance class together.
As far as training for defense goes, we do pop out into the wild every once in a while to keep from getting rusty. Long nature hikes are great for it, though you have to move at the pace of your slowest Pokemon and when that's a gloom, that can be pretty slow. I don't mind a bit though. But yeah, I think a lot of normal exercise that's good for humans, is also good for Pokemon.

New/casual trainer, here! Friendly battles are the way to go - when I first got my Chikorita, I mostly trained with other kids in the area. Now, it's locals and some of the trainers in the surrounding routes - that's how Leaf got to be a Meganium, after all!

And yeah, local pests are helpful for training, too. Being in the middle of a city, we get a LOT of Rattata, sometimes even big Raticates.

Back in my competitive days, I used to take trips to Mt Ember and just practice attacks all day, usually for a week straight. I would also have my pokemon battle each other to raise their evasiveness (Don't worry, their attacks were not full-power so no one ever got hurt)

My Charizard used to actually spend hours just swimming in random bodies of water so that he would build a resistance to it. He started doing this on his own, I had nothing to do with it. Granted, he could not battle for about 24 hours after being submerged in water. But the whole thing you hear about their tails' flames going out is untrue

Well, keep in mind that the water a Pokemon swims in and the water-type attacks are two different things. Otherwise a growlithe would die of thirst before he lapped up water from his dish. Attacks done by water type Pokemon are filled with water-type energy, which is usually what creates the water and what reacts violently against a fire type's energy, causing them to lose much more stamina. Of course, swimming does help build resistance to the water itself, and a tolerance to being wet (it's harder to spark a flame when you're damp, after all), but really it's just good exercise.

And I hope everyone knows that the tailflame death thing is a myth by now. The fire is just present to keep the char's blood warm and circulating, as it is, ironically, a cold blooded creature. Without the flame, it can go into hibernation, which is what makes it look like death to the uneducated, or lead TO death if it has a poor trainer.

You're right it never built a resistance to water, but he became more tolerable of it

When I went on my journey in earnest, my training methods were a bit spotty from the start. Nothing formal, we'd wander areas, taking in the sights. Training took the form of "Holy smokes, I did NOT mean to throw a Pokeball at the ONE tree full of Beedrill..." And then having to deal with the consequences of the mistake!

As I was taking the Gym challenge by the recommended difficulty bracket, (Violet, Azalea, etc) my first wake-up call came after being soundly and thoroughly spanked by Falkner, not once, but twice in a row.

I doubled my efforts, taught my Pokemon some nontraditional moves, and was finally able to move on.

From then on, I trained in areas likely to have similar challenges to the gyms I would next be visiting. Having a go at the bugs in Ilex Forest, challenging some wild and farm Miltanks... It was a matter of study and practice for me.

Back in the day, when I was a rookie trainer, I used to just go out into the forest and pit my skills against anyone who'd take me on. It was a very unrefined method of training, haha. I've learnt my lesson since, but it worked well enough back then.

Nowadays... I have so many Pokemon that I can practically run my own Pokemon training center. I can have my newer Pokemon spar with more experienced ones and they learn really quickly from the senior fighters. My Charizard especially loves to watch over the little ones who are just learning basic attacks. I think it's because she has kids of her own, so she enjoys watching the young ones learn and sometimes even steps in to teach them a thing or two. It's rather cute, actually.

But for some of them, I don't even need to do too much. Nature just takes its course and parents will automatically start to teach their children. For example, I saw my Lucario and Hariyama teaming up to teach their respective bunches of kids how to throw a good punch! Of course, I eventually step in and start a more strict training regiment for whichever Pokemon I pick to train for my team, but as a breeder I have all of my parent Pokemon to help out!

My Pokemon and I did a lot of solo training by ourselves before going into battles against other trainers. Since my three Pokemon are pretty mobile we did a lot of basic things like endurance training and simple exercises. Once they become physically fit enough for battles we'd begin to practice moves. We usually did this in an open field so we'd be restricted to moves that couldn't cause a fire or similar destructive tendencies. A few makeshift dummies could be made by stuff you purchased around town and since they didn't last very long you wouldn't have to worry about carrying them all over the place. Occasionally you'd meet another trainer who was interested in this kind of non-battling training too and band together by doing mock battles or just basic training against certain types. Once my Pokemon became good enough at using their own moves by themselves we started battling other trainers - although solo training still remains a big part of what my Pokemon and I do when I'm not researching something.