It needs some serious pruning and a lot of reduction in the upper 1/3 of the plant. Your first chore should be getting that area where you have more than 6 branches emanating from essentially the same spot. That's going to swell up like a balloon & ruin your tree.

PS - your plant tends to make lots of branches from every pruning cut. Make sure your tree has only branch bifurcations (crotches) not trifurcations (like a trident) or more branches originating from the same place.

Al

yeah, the branches are there mostly because I can't decide on the top. ;) also the right side is rather bare, and I'm hoping for some buds to pop in that direction before I get rid of some of them.

no suggestion on the choice of top?

Can't tell by the picture, but the top is already much too heavy. You want to substantially reduce the top of the tree, eliminating the heavy branches and getting to work on ramification. If you don't reduce that bundle of branches just below the blue arrow this year, you're going to end up with no solutions other than carving it out later, or chopping the tree back below that swelling and putting it in the ground for a while before building a whole new top.

Al

That is sweet. I would like to see picture this fall. Currently I have a burning brush as well. I dug it out about 5 years ago bare root. Could not salvage any roots. I planted it in the middle of my yard its recovered nicely and next year plan on digging it out. and working on it in a pot. though I was the only one seeing potential with this species., Awesome dude!