Pruning a Japanese Maple

I need to prune my Japanese Maple Acer palmatum I think, I have 2 one has gotten too big. Its has gotten 15' to 20' and taken over the area, it is 12 years old. will it be O.K. to prune it back 5 or 6 ft.?

It will be okay but it will look ugly until it puts out new growth. I did it at our last house - had no idea that it would get so big so fast. Pruned it each year and finally had to hack it back quite a bit - didn't hurt it but it looked ugly in winter. I wanted it off the house in order to keep it from rubbing paint/stain off so I chopped it below the main floor. It often grew 3 feet in summer though.

I saw some JMs in other subdivisions that were hacked back to 3 feet off the ground and they came back fine. It reminds me of myrtle murder nowadays.

Here it is when the leaves came out and some new branches.

A tree that large trimmed down to 6' ? they are not bushes - I would not be that aggressive. pictures?

Sometimes you have to be aggressive or just remove the entire tree if planted in the wrong location.

Mary might've been talking about trimming 6' off the top instead of just leaving 6' from the ground.