You have handled the challange well Chris.
Yamadori tend to sway from the groomed trees in the structure / branching rules, we are using wild grown trees for thier age, deformaties, stunted(ness), in general rugged appearance. It's kind of a trade off between the naturalistic ruggedness, and the typical artfull styling.
Throw on top of that the age of many yamadori trees often makes bending some branches impossible or risky at the best ( can you say snap). Often a small branch on old stunted juni's could have been set in place for many years, and won't move easily.