Bamboo is a difficult plant to work with and involves specialized techniques, and knowledgeable timing from what I understand. It is a grass-- not a perennial woody plant (like a tree).
Not many people use it for bonsai because it doesn't really behave in containers well. There are
'clumping" bamboo and "running" bamboo species. There are also timber bamboo and smaller bamboo (the
'switchcane" that grows in the southern states is a native species that stays relatively small--although it still reaches six feet).
Pygmy bamboo is among the smallest, but even then, leaves tend to be over six inches and reaches two feet. Clumping species are the easiest to maintain without having to worry about the potential for aggressive invasion by the running types,
because the running kind can "escape" containers if left carelessly on the ground or are planted without a substantial two-foot deep, in-ground barrier (steel barriers are the best. the rhizomes pierce plastic pretty easily) for even a day or so. They send out aggressive runners along the ground that root easily and everywhere. Some species have become horribly invasive in the U.S. and are now beginning to be prohibited from sale in some states.
There's no 'easy' species of bamboo to work with. Regular bonsai culturing techniques will not work with any of them. Root restriction and persistent removal of the outer layers of shoots is mostly how can be kept small.
All this said, there are lots of videos on the net saying how easy it is--it ain't, at least if you're after a miniature forest of six -12 inch bamboo. FWIW, the penjing/bonsai that are shown in those videos most always looks extremely odd.
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