Larch rebuilding - technique for cutting back large branches

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I have this NA Larch that needs the secondary branching completely rebuilt. I repotted this year so won’t be doing much. I know its a boring tree. I want the most traditional design with longest branches on bottom. I originally thought to reproduce the canonical proportion in the Naka book. Hey, if I can’t master the most basic traditional forms I won’t be able to execute expressive design with technique.

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First question: What’s the right technique for cutting back to softer growth? Here’s a branch. I want to cut back to the red line. But the taper isnt great. It’s like going from 3/4cm to 1/4cm. I suppose its larch so it will thicken up pretty quick.

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Even if I do cut it back and it heals, it’s pretty unlikely that I get backbuds on that long hardwood section (star). If I prune like in the excellent Mirai larch pruning series videos, I would be pruning at most down to the floret around circle. What can I do to promote secondaries along the hardwood sections?

Second question: This branch is the lowest. Ive been inspired by Ryan’s Larch Design video to bulk up with 4gauge and just go nuts. But even if I can correct the angle, I would still have to cut back to softer growth. This would be even worse than the first photo. imagine going from this 3/4in branch to try and cut and taper to one of these dinky 1/4cm things. I dont even know if its possible to develop taper into that situation. What do you advise for cutback technique in this situation?

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PS, it was a pretty drastic root reduction which is why the pot is what it is. Eventually, it will be a much thinner pot suitable for the formal upright style.

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A few bits of input from my experiences with larch

  1. If you’re going to be rebuilding branches I would encourage you to get it into a grow box or bigger pot. The bonsai pot is going to really slow down your ability to cut and regrow branches.
  2. Let it run long before you cut it back. In my experience, larch do much better with rebuilding / growth if you let the branch get long, big and powerful. The idea is that you want the branch to be moving lots of resources through the branch. Regardless of where you cut, have ample energy flow in the branch will help you get where you want to go.
  3. Old buds can be tough to stimulate. I have two larch now and I know they are a bit slow to wake up and ramify. What I experience is that I have many old, long branches and the current buds/leaves do all consistently push out new growth to ramify. Again I do see more success when I left the branch go more “wild”
  4. Backbudding is likely. I have removed some very low branches on my larch (I will jin them in the future) and I see quite some new buds emerging from old wood. I’ll upload some pictures to share, but do know that if you’ve got a healthy happy larch you’ll get buds in places where you’d like.

Hope this helps!