by VITTORIO TESSARO - Italian master sculptor Vittorio Tessaro was commissioned to create the portrait of the great Aikido Master Hirokazu Kobayashi by Andrè Cognard in 2018. The monument was inaugurated at the Aikido Academy in Bourg-Argental in France to commemorate 20 years of Kobayashi sensei's death. This is how this important bronze memorial statue came about, described in a story shared by Vittorio Tessaro himself