Today I met a b-boy who is going to be a new English teacher around my old stomping grounds in rural northern Japan.

What's interesting is the way he found me and how much social media played a part in it. He searched Youtube for Ninohe, the name of a city in the area, and found a video I had posted from a dance event hosted there last year. Upon seeing one of my related videos, he discovered that I also bboyed. Then he went to Bboyworld, one of the largest breaking web forums around, searched for the same user name from Youtube, found my profile, and contacted me from there.

From a 90's standpoint, this is the stuff we were warned about; be wary of putting too much information online and being found. But with the change in attitude that's come with the web's acceptance, this is exactly what we hope for.

Rural Japan, with it's declining population of which only a handful of whom speak English, can be a difficult area to settle into, let alone find other b-boys. But by using social media, he was able to find a shortcut: I'll be passing along the info of b-boys, b-girls and English speakers in the area.

What a reminder of the networking power of social media and the web.