Now, to progress as a warrior the one thing you'll need is experience (skill points), and the best experience you can get is from killin'. However, as a new player you will find that your lack of armor and your lack of skill in your chosen weapon make the prospect of killin' somethin' without getting yourself killed pretty unlikely. So how do you become a great and powerful killin' machine like Vino? Well, consider these pointers for a start:
ONE: Consider your traits and racial bonuses carefully. They can, if you use them, strongly effect your character's overall effectiveness, rate of advancement and even personality. See: Traits on the next page for a complete list of positive, negative and neutral traits as well as racial bonuses.
TWO: You will want to work on your weapon skill before you start hunting. A safe way of doing this are the training dummies at Leda's and Gilven's. They are fairly easy to hit but it doesn't fight back and you lack the interplay you get fighting a creature or sparring. As such they are a rather slow and tedious way of improving your initial skill point total but worth the time and effort. If this seems unattractive to you just imagine fatiguing yourself to the point of exhaustion in the sewers on one rat, and having to leave and go rest before you've hit it enough times to even knock it unconscious. How embarrassing!
Consider also the value of sparring with other characters in practice mode (command toggle: "practice"). You may get a few mild bruises and minor scratches from sparring another player but nothing debilitating or really damaging. You will soon find that sparring exceeds in skill point value the tedious practice of the training dummy (not to mention being a lot more fun!)
THREE: When generating your first character, if you are a patient kind of person, consider that the game allows you to have up to three characters at one time. This allows you to pick and choose which character you will play when you log on. Now, if you spend just a little time creating all three characters you one are bound to have one with an exceptional attribute or two (such as strength, agility, etc.) This could be your "first pick".
If you don't mind the extra work, once you have this character to play with, delete the other two and make two more (the game will require that you wait a certain amount of time before you can delete a character, 24 hours I believe). Continue to do this until one of these two alternates is found to have an even better attribute than your "first pick". The attributes you are looking for are strength, speed, agility, etc. Don't waste your time with perception, intelligence, etc. as a warrior you will want superior physical attributes. This will become your new "first pick".
If you continue to do this then by the time you have got the hang of the game you will likely have an exceptionally agile/strong/fast/whatever character waiting in the wings to spring on Iridine. Such a character can spare you from a lot of the painfully tedious evenings at the obstacle course, not to mention having claim to an exceptional attribute or two immediately upon arrival in Iridine.

To get better, or advance, in any of your character's skills requires two things initially: skill points and money.
The cost of training for your character depends on your current level. That is, the higher the Rank you are training for, the higher the cost. As such, the lower Ranks are relatively cheap - just about a denar or two usually, thought the cost rises with your current Rank.
Skill points (the "experience points" of TEC) are worth their weight in gold, literally. You will find that they are not nearly as easy to come by as you would wish, though that is the challenge, eh? This is why it is considered very bad manners to jump in and attack another guy's target without permission. Finding an animal to fight is sometimes hard, especially if there are a lot of other people hunting in that area at the same time. But, then again, if you are a newbie and hunting at a time when few, or no, other hunters around, you may find yourself swamped with rats (or whatever). Try to visit the hunting grounds when there are not a lot of people there, but some.
So we see that in order to train you will first need skill points, and the way to get skill points is to use the skill itself. For combat, let's say the one-handed swords skill for example, you will have to actually fight, gaining skill points along the way.
So when you have a few skill points and are ready to train go visit the appropriate trainer for your skill. 

Timmis' / Leda's Training - Leda teaches Staves, Clubs and Armed Combat Maneuvers. From the Stone Toga mark go west once, south-west once, south once and then east once. There is a training dummy available for newbies to train with. (walk to toga: W - SW - S - E)
Gilven's Training - Gilven teaches Swords, Knives, Shield and Spear. There is also a training dummy available for practice.  From the Bronze Mark, go twice east, twice north-east, once north, five times east, twice north and then once east (walk to bronze: Ex2 - NEx2 - Ex5 - Nx2 - E)
Rooks' Training - Rook teaches Staves.  From the Bronze Mark, go twice east, twice north-east, once north, five times east, once north and then twice east (walk to bronze: Ex2 -, NEx2 - Ex4 - N - Ex2)
The Perry Inn - Fern teaches Bows. Walk to the vetallun crossroads. From there go once south, then into the inn to the west. She is right there. (walk to cross - Sx1 - enter the inn)
Pratarian's Axe Training - Pratarian teaches Axes. From the Bronze Mark, go twice east, twice north-east, once north, six times east, once south (walk to bronze; Ex2 - NEx2 - N - Ex6 - S) 

To receive training from a trainer first go to the trainer and use the command Learn to see a list of skills that trainer teaches.