When my daughter’s dear high school friend Jeanine Mason won a spot as a finalist on the Fox hit “So You Think You Can Dance” last season, our entire family quickly got addicted to the competition. We first tuned in out of curiosity and to support Jeanine. I never expected to actually enjoy the show – or learn so much about the intricacies of the various dances.

All of the show’s young contestants made dance seem so appealing – and much to my husband’s dismay -- I developed an urge to take dancing lessons. (Would my aging hips still swivel enough to tango?)

Enter our month-long sojourn to Buenos Aires – the birthplace of tango. We studied Spanish in the mornings, and armed with suggestions from our tutors, each afternoon we set out to absorb the city’s rich cultural heritage. We’d often stumble onto street bands playing mournful tango melodies and dancers twirling on the sidewalks for tips. It was only a matter of time until we came face to face with the tango ourselves.

I could hardly wait to get started, but the hubby, not so much. Then came the challenge: “You should definitely take a tango class,” our Spanish teacher insisted. “You can’t really understand the tango until you experience it firsthand.”

Suddenly this endeavor wasn’t merely a dancing lesson, but a cultural experiment! And so we arrived at the Borges Cultural Center – me in a twirly skirt and my husband in his best shirt -- fully expecting an evening of touristy kitsch. Oh no! There were only six students, the tango teacher spoke no English and we were the only foreigners – and beginners-- in the bunch.

Eduardo flipped on the music, strutted across the floor with an imaginary partner and suddenly landed directly in front of me. My first assignment was simply to learn how to lean left and right, on tiptoe. As with most traditional dances, the female tango partner gets steered around by an assertive male and only looks as good as he can make her look. With Eduardo at the steering wheel, I was feeling fairly optimistic.

And then reality (in the form of my husband) set in. It’s not that he didn’t try. It’s just that the tango, like many artistic endeavors, is way harder than it looks. One of the female students spent the entire hour-and-a-half of our class practicing the basic fundamental of walking (tangoing) in a straight line.

Eduardo clearly hadn’t encountered that many American tourists, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with us. For the most part his dance instruction consisted of one word – NO – repeated in spitfire.

“No-no-no-no-no-no-no,” Eduardo would cry from across the room as he spied us trying to tango. Then he’d run over, grab me and proceed to pivot. (Yes, I can dance!) But then, back to the hubby. While what we did couldn’t exactly be called tango, I’d say we did win the “good sport” award.

After 90 minutes of working up a sweat on tango’s home turf, we came away with one set of blisters, one sore back, one busted ballerina flat and a true admiration for the tango. But not just the tango.

In the blip of an evening, I felt I truly understood how amazing it was that my daughter’s 18-year-old friend could dance her way into the hearts of millions of Americans and actually win first place in a nationally televised dancing competition.

Jeanine had to dance day in and day out for 10 weeks, learn new dances for every episode, and she did it without ever losing her effervescent smile. That sort of mastery over one’s body is something few people experience, and I suspect that one payoff for such discipline is exhilaration, a sort of physical intoxication.

Our tango class in Buenos Aires didn’t turn us into professional wannabes, (the hubby still hasn’t agreed to Arthur Murray), but it did transform our experience of the professional “Tango Show” on our last night in Buenos Aires. As the Broadway-style tango dancers twirled around the stage, we felt sincere awe at the devotion on display.

Do I think we can dance? Ever? No. But I'm definitely glad we tried.