California Jam Italia #1: San Ramon AKA The Hottest Place On Earth


Fabio Sanna – San Ramon, California (July 12, 2005)
[click photo for larger picture]

Was the weather at EFC a little too cold for you? Do you like freestyling inside an oven? Do you mind if the grond melts your freestyle sneakers? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then you would have had a great time at the first pre-FPAW jam of our Italian visitors.

Eleonora Imazio and Fabio Sanna arrived into San Francisco on Monday evening. After a improvised driving tour of San Francisco and some obligatory photos of the Golden Gate bridge, they got some much needed rest only to wake up on Tuesday in the middle of a heat wave.

Heat wave, you say? A heat wave in the Bay Area? The temperature must have gotten up to almost 22C, right? Wrong! After a weekend of chilly 20C degree days, Bay Area weather changed. The sun decided to focus its beams directly here, driving temperatures into the 30’s in an instant. Reports of temperatures at the jam ranged from 34C to 40C. Yes, it was that hot. It was one of those boiling days where wind actually made you feel hotter.

Eleonora was smart, jamming in short bursts then reclining under shade trees to enjoy the action and laugh at the fools melting in the sun. The rest of us – Fabio Sanna, Arthur Coddington, Greg Riley and Doug Korns – played on for almost three hours.

This was a trial by fire for Fabio, but he passed with flying colors. He was the most turbo of the day. He jammed the hardest and sat down last. Along the way he put down some sweet combos. My favorite was a UD series that included a double over down and some incredible flat work. If I hadn’t been delirious from the heat, I might be able to provide more details.

Tomorrow, the invasion continues with the arrival of two groups of European travellers to the Bay Area and the promise of more jams, these fueled by cooler breezes.

Ciao!