Somewhere between "draw, touch, gone" and "held so long the aim starts swimming" lives your shot. Most self-taught archers have never timed theirs — and the answer is more useful than almost any other number you can get from a phone clip.
The honest ranges
There's no single correct duration, but there are informative ones. A full cycle — from the bow starting up to the string going — done in under about three seconds usually reads as snap shooting: the anchor was a place driven through, not settled into. Nothing in the shot got a chance to finish. At the other end, holds that stretch on and on have their own tax: the back is a muscle, not a vise, and somewhere past the comfortable hold your tension starts quietly degrading — creep, drift, and an aim that gets worse the longer you stare at it. Many archers shoot their best somewhere in the middle: an unhurried raise, a smooth draw, a genuine settle of a second or two at anchor, then the release arriving out of building tension. Perhaps five to eight seconds all told.
But the calibration matters more than the stopwatch. Compound archers, with let-off carrying most of the holding weight, can afford a longer, steadier hold — and should probably use some of it. Barebow and traditional archers often shoot a brisker rhythm, and a quick cycle can still be a settled one — the test isn't seconds, it's whether there's a moment at anchor where the shot becomes still before it goes. Coach the archer in the mirror, not the archer in the textbook.
Rhythm beats duration
Here's the deeper point the stopwatch gestures at: the best shots aren't the ones that take a specific time — they're the ones that take the same time. A repeating rhythm means every phase of the shot is getting its full allocation on every arrow: the anchor confirms its contacts, the back finishes taking the load, the settle actually settles. When your cycle time swings between three seconds and nine depending on nerves or fatigue, different shots are skipping different phases, and the arrows inherit the lottery.
Rhythm is also your early-warning system. A shot cycle that shrinks as the session goes on usually means the draw weight is winning and the body is learning to skip the burn. A cycle that balloons often means aim anxiety — waiting for a perfect picture that doesn't exist. Both are easier to catch as a number than as a feeling.
The drill — Counted Shot Cycle
To find and fix your rhythm, count one full end per session, every arrow, silently: raise-two-three… draw-two-three… anchor… settle-two-three… then let it go. The count isn't there to slow you down to some official speed — it's there to give every phase a reserved slot, so nothing gets skipped and every arrow runs the same program. Snap shooters will find the settle feels eternal at first; check the video and it's two seconds. Long holders will find the count gives them permission to release before the aim decays.
Getting the actual number is easy: phone on a tripod behind the shooting line, whole body in frame, start recording before you raise the bow and keep rolling through the follow-through, one arrow per clip. CoachVision measures the shot-cycle duration and the stillness of your hold from that single clip and shows you where your rhythm sits. One counted end per session, one filmed arrow per week — and somewhere in there you'll find the tempo that's yours, the one where the shot feels less like an event and more like a habit. That's the one worth keeping.