Mia Segal

Mia Segal was born in Jerusalem in 1930 into a family with deep roots in the city. Before her central role in the Feldenkrais Method, she trained in the Alexander Technique, which gave her a framework for observing posture, movement, attention, and habit. This dual grounding shaped her later teaching across more than one somatic lineage.

Segal began working with Moshe Feldenkrais in 1957. The Feldenkrais Guild of North America identifies her as the first person Feldenkrais individually trained and authorized as a practitioner, preceding his first formal Israeli teacher-training group. During their close association—described in community accounts as involving observation, assistance, collaboration, and testing—she became instrumental in the method's development and early transmission.

In 1970, Segal earned a judo black belt at the Kodokan in Tokyo. Her time in Japan also included study of acupuncture and Seitai and participation in kyogen theatre. These experiences broadened the cultural and movement contexts through which she understood learning, balance, contact, and choice—dimensions that later informed her teaching, though not in ways that directly reduce her Feldenkrais work to any single tradition.

Segal taught internationally alongside Gaby Yaron, Yochanon Rywerant, and Ruthy Alon, serving as an assistant in Feldenkrais's San Francisco professional training. She took responsibility for teaching newer students the foundations of Functional Integration through demonstration, observation, and supervised practice. She later led trainings in the Netherlands and beyond, emphasizing careful attention over the accumulation of fixed techniques. In 1987, Segal and her daughter Leora Gaster established MBS Academy to continue their body–mind education work.

Segal remained an active mentor for decades, teaching in more than thirty countries and preserving lessons and demonstrations through her academy. Though her relationship with formal Feldenkrais organizations evolved over time, she maintained her influence as a practitioner and trainer until her death in California on February 15, 2025, at age ninety-four. Her legacy rests not on stage repertory but on the precision, directness, and generosity with which she transmitted a practice that helps performers examine how sensation, intention, habit, and organization shape action.