From the Glendale News Press, August 1, 2007

With a stroke of pluck 65-year-old avid swimmer to take the Alcatraz Challenge, and his secret weapon is hypnosis.
By Ryan Vaillancourt

When Glendale resident Jim Zinger, 65, wades into the chilly San Francisco Bay on Sunday to swim the 27th annual Alcatraz Challenge, he'll be among the oldest and coldest athletes in the water.

Unlike most men and women signed up for the event, which starts at the former federal prison on Alcatraz Island and ends 1.5 miles away on the lush green shores of the Presidio, Zinger doesn't plan to wear a wetsuit over his trunks.

"Out of 650 swimmers, I think there's less than 40 going, as we say, 'naked,'" race director Gary Emich said.

But Zinger, a professional hypnotist, has a secret weapon that he likens to a mental wetsuit.

"I have an edge that they don't have, which is self-hypnosis," said Zinger, who despite being an avid swimmer has never swam the Alcatraz Challenge.

Forty years ago, Zinger started Hypmovation Inc., a center for hypnotic treatment and self-hypnosis training that has been in Burbank since 1978.

As an author and lecturer, Zinger has toured the country and world teaching corporate employees how to balance their personal, family and business lives with hypnosis.

"I pioneered hypnosis in the corporate world," he said. "I'm the person who took hypnosis into the mainstream."

Before Zinger gets into the water, he uses some of the same psychological tactics imparted in his seminars and literature, he said.

Sitting in his car before a recent routine training swim at Will Rogers Beach in Santa Monica, he delved into a state of "waking hypnosis," he said.

Thinking of sea creatures, he convinced himself that his skin was like that of porpoise, he said.

"Seals, porpoises, sea otters, they have a thick skin so the cold doesn't penetrate," Zinger said. "I tell myself that that's how my body works."

But the Alcatraz Challenge is more to Zinger than a chance to put his career experience to use.

When he turned 65 on June 11, he was reminded by a brief television program that his birthday coincides with the famed day in 1962 when former Alcatraz prisoners Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin escaped from the prison.

"I knew that as a kid," said Zinger, who turned 21 when news of the escape broke. "But this year I just had an epiphany and thought, 'I'm going to do it.'"

Morris and the Anglin brothers were never found, so whether they ever made it out of the water remains unknown.

But when Zinger hops into the ocean, he'll be flanked by water rescue boats and hundreds of fellow swimmers, Emich said.

"It's not an easy swim, but given safe water support and infrastructure and being a fairly competent swimmer, it can be done," he said.

About 3% of event participants fail to make it across each year, Emich said.

Zinger's only concern about the event is that he's unfamiliar with the route, but he plans to finish in about an hour, he said.

"I just want to do it, say I've done it and be done with it," he said.

RYAN VAILLANCOURT covers business, politics and the foothills. He may be reached at (818) 637-3215 or by e-mail at ryan.vaillancourt@latimes.com

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