One of my New Years resolutions for 2012 has been to practice more in general and be placing more consistently by the end of the year. So how long is safe to practice per day? How about stretching? I'm starting to really like this 1 hour per day 6 days a week thing (including classes) but would more be safe or would that be a bad idea? Just wondering. I don't wanna overdo it.

I used to either go to class or practice every day. I've been practicing less often now, and my stamina actually improved! I guess I was never fully recovering from each class/practice.

It totally depends on your fitness level, and what you do during that hour of practice. First, you should not push yourself too hard if you have not been practicing at this level before, because you could injure yourself. So I would recommend working your way up to the level of practicing you want to be at.

Second, the time spent practicing doesn't matter so much as what you do during your practices. Are you just mindlessly going through your dances? Do you have a specific goal, like say working on your turnout? Will you do specific exercises to strengthen the areas that need strengthening? Having specific goals and an idea of how to reach that goal, and then targeting your practice to it is essential. And sometimes, if you're really focussed, you can get a really good, specific practice done in 15 minutes and show improvement, as opposed to just running through all your dances for an hour.

Certainly give yourself at least one day off so your body has time to recover. Depending on your fitness level and your compeitive level I would suggest adding in some cross training (such as swimming, yoga etc.) to avoid repetivive stress injuries which tend to plague highland dancers. Think about adding in some other activites to balance your body out and to help with the imbalance in a dancers body, most dancers have over developed areas and others that are rather under developed so finding ways to work on those areas can greatly improve your dancing. If you are training at a champ level I would suggest looking at marathon training schedules to find out how to manage your work load, they will give you a great idea of how to find a balance that can keep your healthy! Try alternating between technical practices and stamina practices, have variation to keep you motivated. Remember to practice smart, planning out your week can be helpful because after all perfect practice makes perfect!

it depends on what you can handle physically i suppose. i was doing about 4 days a week with 2 hours of class included and altogether maybe 6 hours and ended up with terrible tendonitis. you dont want to overdo it and be in pain at competitions as its very frustrating when you know your not performing at you r very best. good luck

Thanks for the advice
I'm trying to make sure I don't overdo it... And I was looking into cross training but never really did any. I might be joining a yoga class though so that should be good for my dancing right?
I think for now I'm going to stick to my 1 hour plan, then... I might spend a bit less time on stamina though. I'd really hate to end up with some injury!