Kobayashi described the long time at Ueshiba's side not only as uke, but also outside of the dojo as companion to the impulsive aikido founder, as extremely hard.

Morihei Ueshiba was nearly each month in Osaka, in order to hold ten-day-long training courses.

He gave regular training courses in France, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Germany and in the Netherlands.

Some other words people often heard him repeat while on the mat were "Itsumo manaka" (always towards the centre) and "Ima" (right now).

On 10 October 1969, Kobayashi invited Tomiki to Osaka, where the latter gave a short course to introduce competitive aikido to students from six local universities.

One of Tomiki's instructors, Tetsuro Nariyama, came to Osaka from Kokushikan University and spent six years as uchideshi with Kobayashi.

Nariyama taught at the Shodokan Honbu but at the same time he was learning from Kobayashi who was teaching in the universities in that area.

Aikido in the style of Kobayashi Hirokazu is taught today in Europe, South America, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, USA and Japan.

A few months before he died in 1998, he gave the permission to his students to found the independent organisation, Académie autonome d'aikido, which attempted to synthesise the uniqueness of his teaching, without asserting superiority over other styles.