NEW YORK — Tim Gunn sits on a bench in a long room that was once the cafeteria of a Manhattan school. Pairs of high-school-aged fencers face off on narrow strips, lunging at each other with sabers.

“See? Look at how well she parries!” Gunn says. Known for his wise, teacherly ways on Project Runway, the reality television series that pits aspiring fashion designers in competition, Gunn sounds no different here. He’s praising, cajoling, questioning, encouraging.

Tim Morehouse, a three-time Olympian, runs the practice, calmly and firmly correcting his fencers. He moves from pair to pair, doling out advice and pushing athletes who are struggling.

Gunn may seem sure of himself — because he always does — but he is as raw and inexperienced as anyone in the gym. The 62-year-old only discovered the sport five months ago, but it has become his newest passion thanks to the careful mentoring of Morehouse.

They met when Morehouse interviewed Gunn on an AOL web series. Gunn was fascinated by Morehouse’s drive to grow fencing, and asked if the two could meet for lunch. As they ate, Morehouse talked about Fencing in the Schools, a not-for-profit he founded to help include fencing in physical education programs, and Tim Morehouse Fencing, a club located, coincidentally, just steps from Gunn’s Upper West Side home.

Gunn had heard enough. He had a “streak of inspiration.” More than 40 years had passed since Gunn had been physically active. Though he walks miles every day, he hadn’t owned a pair of sweatpants in his adult life. In his book The Natty Professor, Gunn even said, “I’ve never been in a gym, and the only sport I ever liked was swimming, because it’s clean, quiet and you don’t sweat.”

But Morehouse’s stories about fencing and his passion to grow the sport gave Gunn an idea.

“Can I become your oldest fencing student?” he asked.

Morehouse quickly agreed. The sport of fencing challenges Gunn in ways he has never expected.

“Everything about this sport is counter-intuitive. The way you stand, the way you strike, every single thing is counter-intuitive,” Gunn tells For The Win. “I can’t begin to tell you how physically and mentally challenging the whole experience is. It’s why I love it.”

For the past five months, Morehouse has trained Gunn in every facet of the sport. They meet twice a week, and Gunn goes to the club on his own to practice footwork. Books about fencing have joined the history, fashion and biography tomes on his bookshelves. When he visits his beloved Metropolitan Museum of Art, he finds himself drifting toward the arms and armor section again and again.

“He loves the mental aspect of the sport, and wants to know why you do something,” Morehouse says.

One Friday morning earlier this month, Gunn pulled on those sweatpants and the rest of the fencing kit, including the silver, mesh mask that not only protects but also obscures the face. Saber fencing is quick and aggressive, and requires a mix of mental focus and split-second decision-making. Gunn tries and tries to find the opening against Morehouse to lunge in and score by touching any part of the body above the belt.

Clang, clang, clang. The sabers smack against each other as Morehouse defends against Gunn with parries, the defensive move of blocking a hit with the saber. Finally Gunn parries a shot from Morehouse, and the teacher — perhaps purposefully — leaves himself open to a return shot. Gunn lunges and scores. He takes off the helmet, red-faced, flustered, and smiling.

“I’m a wreck after fencing. It’s a great feeling,” Gunn says. “The trouble with fencing is, you can’t do anything by rote. Tim keeps talking about muscle memory, that eventually I’ll be able to call upon these moves like words in your vocabulary, but it’s just so incredibly daunting.”

Gunn’s father had Alzheimer’s disease, and died from the disease in a nursing home at age 67. His grandmother died in a mental institution. Physical benefits from fencing aren’t the only thing he seeks.

“Part of my mission has been to stave this off. There’s no reason to believe I have it, but there’s no reason to believe I don’t. This mental engagement with this sport is like chess,” Gunn says.

But it’s not just the sport that has added so much to Gunn’s life. He found a relationship with Morehouse built not just on fencing but their shared love for teaching.

“Tim and I have so much to talk about. I spent 29 years in a classroom, about to do my 15th season of Project Runway, plus ancillary, related things. We talk about the challenges of communicating, directing, guiding, correcting,” Gunn says.

“He appreciates what I appreciate, which is hard-working, talented people. We talk about this, how in society we value things that aren’t valuable, aren’t worked-for. And that’s something about the Olympics, where these people have worked really hard, and represent hard work and good values,” Morehouse says.

Both have plenty of hardware. Gunn has an Emmy, which he keeps on his kitchen counter. Morehouse won a silver medal at the Beijing Olympics, and keeps it in a case on his desk at home, though it often goes with him when he’s out promoting fencing.

Gunn, who was raised in Washington, D.C., spent most of his life working at the prestigious Parsons School for Design within the New School in New York. His career was spent away from the spotlight, teaching and challenging student work at an institution that boasts alumni such as Marc Jacobs and Donna Karan. In 2004, he was asked to serve as a mentor on a new reality show, Project Runway, alongside host and supermodel Heidi Klum, and judges fashion designer Michael Kors and editor Nina Garcia.

While Gunn was the least-known name among the group, he quickly became the star of the show thanks to his kind but forthright criticisms. His catchphrases, “Make it work” and “Carry on” endeared him to the national audience. Even as the show moved from Bravo to Lifetime, and Kors left and was replaced by Zac Posen, Gunn was the show’s constant.

Gunn’s main job on Project Runway is to mentor the young designers. He walks around the work room, giving critiques and helping them through the relatively minor crises that come up when the fabric isn’t cooperating or a rusty iron leaks on a dress. He is also there for far more difficult discussions, like when one contestant revealed he was HIV positive. At Morehouse Fencing, he fills the same role. The fencers, mostly high school-aged, have welcomed Gunn as a fellow fencer. In turn, he has given the kind of advice and pep talks he is used to giving in the workroom.

Katherine Glenn is 15, and joined Morehouse Fencing not long after a friend of hers started fencing. Gunn noticed her struggling one night. As a novice in the sport, he understood her frustrations. He decided this was not the night for a make-it-work-esque pep talk. Instead, he commiserated with her.

“He said he was having a hard time with fencing, too, and how you just have to practice. He gave me his “Make It Work” book, and I liked that!” she says, referring to Gunn’s Golden Rules: Life’s Little Lessons for Making It Work. “He’s helped me.”

On the night we visited Morehouse Fencing, Gunn had another book for Katherine. Her practice had gone much better as she worked to turn defensive moves into scoring. As she finished Gunn handed her a copy of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow, about staying positive in the toughest of circumstances.

Becoming part of a community with so many young people was serendipitous timing for Gunn, who last season helped launch Project Runway: Junior. As fencing has added so much to Gunn’s personal life, mentoring the teenagers on the new show has rejuvenated his professional life.

“The first critique, I was really on pins and needles. I thought, ‘Do I have to walk through the workroom on eggshells?’ In about five minutes I knew, no. They want it. I had more substantial dialogue with them than I did with any season 14 designers, who I felt like I was talking at them, not with them,” Gunn says.

His problems with season 14, which aired in 2015, are well-known. Gunn clashed with designers who had trouble taking any sort of feedback for their work. After the show aired, he said he “hated” the season.

“The one common denominator to my frustrations and Sturm und Drang and to frankly, not very good outcomes: stubbornness. It’s a very troubling characteristic for anyone, and it never, ever goes well,” Gunn says. “Another is an inability to let information in, to process it and synthesize it. I say to the designers all the time, ‘You don’t have to do what I say. What I want you to do is take a step back and look at your work and listen to what I said. You’re responsible for your decision-making. I’m not.’”

The start of Juniors made Gunn remember what he loved about working on the show in the first place.The teenagers showed they were just as capable as the adults. When asked to construct outfits out of items they found in a car wash, or finish a red carpet-look in five hours, they handled it with few problems.

But it wasn’t just the clothes they produced that inspired Gunn. It was the community they built during their time on the show. The 12 young designers continue to stay in touch and have a standing weekly call for the entire group.

“When they were eliminated, the judges and I were prepared for a 10-point on the Richter Scale. No. They were calm, professional, and the judges and I were all in tears!” Gunn says.

Now, he runs into parents of 7-year-old boys and girls who tell him their children are learning about sewing and design so they can be on the show one day.

“This motivation to work hard reminds me of this fencing experience,” Gunn says. “It’s not going to happen by staring at the saber. It’s only going to happen through hard work and due diligence, and practice, practice, practice, practice.”

Gunn had a rude awakening the first time he moved beyond practicing. Morehouse matched Gunn up with an 11-year-old girl. Though official bouts are usually divided by gender, Morehouse groups them by ability level. Gunn lost in an experience he called “thoroughly, horribly humiliating.” Afterwards, he made a decision. He would continue to work with Morehouse, but he would not compete.

Morehouse insisted Gunn try again, and he was thoroughly beaten by a 14-year-old. But he quickly figured out that the only way to truly embrace his newfound love was to take what he learned in practice and apply it to competition. He had to be willing to show off his final product.

Gunn has become Morehouse’s chief advocate, hosting a party at his home for Fencing in the Schools donors in April. He’ll speak at the organization’s gala on May 19.

The program is working with 130 schools across the country, and Morehouse is trying to encourage clubs to form so students who become fascinated by the sport have somewhere to learn it.

Once filming for the 15th season of Project Runway (and the second season of the junior version) begins this summer, Gunn will spend 12 hours a day, seven days a week in studio, with the only days off coming on the Fourth of July and Labor Day. But he still plans on making it to Morehouse’s gym as often as he can.

“If you are assertive about it,” he says, “and curious about life and what life has to offer, you can add an entire new dimension to your life.”

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