I bought one from a nursery about a month ago and as you can see it in a container. I was told to transplant it at the end of winter into a bonsai container after I reduce the roots and then I was told to wait probably another year before I do any heavy pruning, but I could do some pinching on the undersides of the branch even starting now, do you think this is accurate in your experience? Thanks
You might want to work on the structure, reduce and perform an initial styling before putting it in a bonsai pot. I'm pretty conservative with these, and prune some of the branches that need to be removed every 6 months or so. The extra foliage helps it heal and it won't slow down much. At the same time, you can begin cutting back overly long branches a bit at a time, instead of being drastic with them. In other words, cut back maybe a third to some strong growth, let the tree back bud and recover, then cut back again until you reach the desired length.
Thus cryptomeria back buds very easily, but can slow down if you are very aggressive.
If you style the tree in the nursery pot, it will have enough roots to recover rapidly, rather than transplanting and removing roots, then styling.