Hi everybody, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. One of the questions people often ask me is: “Hey, Fran, how did you learn how to dance?” They assume that like today’s would-be dance enthusiasts I took a bunch of lessons, and practiced a lot. But this isn’t the way things went down. In fact, my own process was similar to the way people (well, men, to be more specific) have traditionally learned to dance Tango in Argentina.

Here’s what happened. I started in the seventh grade at church venues in which the good sisters forced me (and all the other boys) to dance with — eeeewwww! — “girls!” At that time, being told to hold hands with one of these alien creatures, having to place my right hand around her waste, and then trying to move from one foot to the other, stepping all over her feet in the process, was something I definitely did not want to do!

Baseball, yes; girls, no!

Things changed quite suddenly, when I realized somewhere around age thirteen that “girls” were actually more interesting to me than baseball. (Of course, I couldn’t tell this to my friends, because it would be a breach of our highly exclusive code of conduct. Little did I know that my friends were all feeling the same way.)

In any case, one of the curious corollaries of my personal pro-feminine epiphany — some might refer to this as pubescence — was the awareness that girls like to dance.

Weird, but true.

It didn’t take much to figure out that, if I learned this peculiar skill set, it might open the door to all manner of co-ed possibilities, although at that tender age, I have to confess that I wasn’t at all certain of what these might be.

My initial foray into the world of dance prowess occurred in the basement of a trusted friend (no names, here, folks — it remains, of course, crucial even now to protect the reputation of my co-conspirator). In this secret venue, I learned the basic step of what was called “the Lindy.” My friend had obtained this magical formula from his older sister, and was covertly passing it along to me as an enticement both of us might subsequently be able to utilize in plying our newly found interest in female interaction.

How could I know at that time that I was emulating more or less precisely the traditional Argentine way of learning by dancing with another man — well okay, boy?

I was able to unveil my recently acquired expertise at a school dance the following month. While other boys idled listlessly in the dark recesses of the room, my friend and I caused a sensation by burning the floor with pretty much every girl in the place. We were nothing short of spectacular, if I do say so myself. And because we were also both tall, we did not risk the potential recriminations of those envious lesser mortals who were not yet in possession of our consummate skill.

What I mean is that we didn’t get beat up in the schoolyard after the dance.

After that life-changing experience, I was pumped, my friends! I wanted more. Shall I share with you the next phase of my dance odyssey? Tune in next week, when I reveal my momentous ascendancy to the throne of “Mashed Potato” Champion at the Someplace Else bar in Roosevelt, Long Island.

How does all this nonsense help us learn how to dance? Stick around, folks, and find out.