Uno, dos, tango

It's easy to see his progress. At one point, something clicks and he gets so excited, he breaks rank and does a ballet-style split jump.

"Taking the class, something has changed," Bobrowski says, catching his breath. "I could feel another muscle working. Suddenly, you feel another part of your leg that gives you a power to lead."

"You can dance with less tension," he says. "It's like dancing heart to heart."

A few nights later, I meet Guzmán under a giant outdoor gazebo in the tourist-free Belgrano neighborhood at the beautiful Glorieta de Barrancas de Belgrano milonga. Here, a few nights a week, tango courses are followed by open dancing, and Guzmán has promised to explain her connection and get me out on the floor.

Porteños (Buenos Aires natives) of almost every age and walk of life are here to dance. There are 70-year-olds in their Sunday best and a twentysomething couple of a dressed-to-kill woman in purple pumps and a guy in a track suit and black sneakers, all creating a near-perfect cross-section of the city. The big, glitzy tango shows downtown make for great spectacle, but here under the gazebo it feels like staring into the heart of the city and its inhabitants.

"It's a wonderful dance to learn about the relationship between a man and a woman," says Guzmán. "Having a man hold you is like a lesson in letting life take you somewhere and not trying to control it all the time."

"Dancing is a place where people are alone, then they meet someone, they're held," she says. "It's very sensual. It's like a drug." At this point, her attention floats away into the crowd in front of us, or perhaps she's daydreaming of some tango connection in the past. "There's passion," she says, floating back. "It is passion."

Suddenly, she grabs my hand and commands, "Put down the pen!" pulling me onto the floor so I can, um, strut my stuff. I show her the uno, dos . . . uno, dos, tres and the crossover step I've learned, along with one that sympathetic locals have taught me.

"That's it?" she cries, giving my limited repertoire a good-hearted tease. I turn three shades of red, but she graciously sticks it out with me, as people literally dance circles around us. When she catches me regressing into "lumbering Frankenstein" mode, she squeezes my hand and says, "Follow me," breaking into a bit of a wild freestyle. It's probably tango heresy, but it's perfect.

Later, I join Guzmán and some friends for a drink at a crowded sidewalk cafe, but in my head, I'm still under the gazebo with the sun going down, watching people dance, hearts pressed against hearts.

Joe Ray is a Paris-based food and travel writer and photographer. He can be reached through his website, joe-ray.com.