Ginseng Ficus - creating movement and taper

It's still early in the growing season in South Africa so my Ginseng Ficus has hardly changed since it received its last chop in July.

July 2018

Although I said at the time that my next step was repotting and root work, that thick straight leader has been bothering me for a while now, so today I decided to do something about it. Just one chop for now:

September 2018 - after the chop

The new leader is going to need quite a bit of fattening up, but the position is much better.

Now I really am planning to remove the fat horizontal root on the left side:

Offending root to be cut back to the green line

I'm hoping to do that at a workshop in about ten days' time.

This guy may be a Ginseng Ficus, but I'm determined that he'll look like a proper bonsai one day.

You can see photos of the full progression of this tree here.