Loctician Training in San Diego: Hands-On Dreadlock Training With the Seienstyle Process

By Ann-Marie Christell, Seienstyle

A quiet pull toward this work

My name is Ann-Marie Christell, and I have been a professional loctician for over 26 years. I have made dreadlocks on people from all over the world, trained more than a hundred locticians, and travelled to places like Bali, New York, London, Barcelona and Los Angeles to do this work.

Over the years, I have noticed that the people who find their way to my training rarely arrive by chance. Most of them have felt a quiet pull toward dreadlocks for a long time. Some are hairstylists who want to specialise. Some are beauty professionals who want to offer something deeper. Some have never worked with hair professionally at all, but they know, somewhere in their body, that this is the work they are meant to do.

If that sounds like you, and you live in or near San Diego, I want to tell you about the Professional Loctician In-Person Training, and how we can do it together right where you are.

Why San Diego

San Diego is a city that lives close to nature. The ocean, the light, the beaches and the long days outdoors shape the rhythm of life there. Many people who live by the coast feel a natural pull toward a freer, more natural way of being, and for many of them, dreadlocks are part of that.

The people who sit in a loctician's chair have often been dreaming of their dreadlocks for years. They are not just changing their hair. They are stepping into a version of themselves they have been picturing for a long time. In San Diego, there are so many people standing at that threshold, and they deserve a loctician who knows how to carry them across it with skill and with care.

The Seienstyle process was built to work on every hair texture, from fine, straight hair to tight coils. You will never need to tell someone that their hair is not right for dreadlocks. And because the method is clean and product-free, it suits a life lived in salt water and sunshine, where people want dreadlocks that feel like hair, not something sticky.

I come to you

You do not need to travel to Europe to learn with me. For the in-person training, I travel to you, and we work together in San Diego.

This is not a large classroom course. It is a two-day, one-on-one training where it is just the two of us, working side by side on live hair models. You are not one student in a group of twenty, trying to see what the teacher is doing from the back of the room. You have my full attention, my hands next to yours, and my eyes on your work.

Because it is one-on-one, the training is shaped around you. Your experience, your goals, the services you most want to master, and the places where you need the most support. Whether you are a complete beginner or an experienced hairstylist, we start exactly where you are.

What we work on together

Before we meet, you choose the services you most want to focus on. The full list includes dreadlocks on natural hair, dreadlocks with extensions, dreadlock maintenance, mermaid dreadlocks, synthetic dreadlocks and several others.

Throughout the two days, you work on real hair models, in a calm and supportive environment, with direct guidance and feedback from me as you go. You build confidence through doing the work, not just watching it. And you leave with real experience in your hands, not only theory in your notebook.

This is how crafts have been passed on for most of human history. There is no substitute for being in the same room as someone while they work. You learn things you would not have known to ask about. You absorb things that cannot be put into words.

The Seienstyle process

Everything I teach rests on the Seienstyle process, the holistic system I have built over more than two decades of working with hair. It is a way of creating, maintaining and extending dreadlocks that honours the body of the client, the body of the loctician and the intelligence of the hair itself.

It is inclusive across all hair textures. It is clean and product-free, with no wax, no gel and no residue. It uses a crochet technique that is gentle on your hands, so you will not finish your days with bleeding or aching fingers. It is gentle on your client's scalp too. And because we work with the hair's natural intelligence rather than against it, dreadlocks made this way begin to mature within two to three months, without the long awkward stage so many people expect.

A method that protects your body

When I started in this work, I was taught a technique that made my hands bleed. For years, I worked five or six days a week and finished many of those days wanting to lie down on the floor. I seriously thought about quitting.

Instead, I went into every detail of how I worked. My posture, how I held the crochet hook, how I positioned my client, how I moved through a long day. Slowly, the Seienstyle process grew out of those changes, and it is the reason I am still doing this work, without pain, 26 years later.

In the training, we talk not only about the movement of your hands, but about everything that holds that movement. The tools worth investing in. The furniture that keeps your spine straight. How to position your client so your body stays well. How to structure your days so you can do this for decades, not just a few years.

More than a technique

My students often tell me afterwards that I did not only teach them a technique. They say I taught them a new way of working, and sometimes a new way of living.

Being a loctician means spending eight to twelve hours in close physical proximity to another person. People start to talk. They share stories they have not told anyone. The hair is the doorway, and holding space for what comes through that doorway is part of the work. As a breathwork and meditation teacher as well as a loctician, I weave this inner side of the craft into the training: how to be present, how to listen without fixing, how to stay open without carrying everything home with you.

We also talk about building a real practice. How to position yourself as a specialist, how to share your work on social media, how to photograph your dreadlocks beautifully, how to attract the clients you most want to work with, and how to charge what your work is actually worth.

Support that continues after the two days

The training does not end when our two days together are over.

Before we meet in person, we have a one-on-one video call, so I know you have understood the foundations of the Seienstyle process and have had time to practise. After the training, you continue with ongoing coaching calls and become part of the Seienstyle community of locticians around the world.

The in-person training also includes lifetime access to The Professional Loctician Online Course. The online course becomes the reference library you live with, and the in-person training is the deep, hands-on transmission that brings it to life in your hands. Together, they give you both.

So, is the in-person loctician training in San Diego right for you?

It might be, if you feel called to do meaningful work with your hands. If you want to learn a method that is gentle on your body, works on every hair texture and uses no products. If you want personal, one-on-one guidance rather than a crowded classroom. And if you want to build a practice that can last not five years, but thirty.

It is not a shortcut. You will still need to practise, and you will still grow into your own voice as a loctician over time. What the training gives you is the right foundation, and the clearest path I know to get there.

You can read all the details about the training here.

The Professional Loctician In-Person Training

If you are still at the very beginning and want to understand what this work truly asks of you, my free ebook Becoming a Loctician is a gentle place to start.

Read the free ebook Becoming a Loctician here

And if something in you is already stirring, I would love to hear from you. Email me at [email protected] and tell me a little about yourself and where you are on your journey. We can set up a video call to see whether we are a good match, because when a student and teacher truly click, the learning flows so much more easily.

With love,

Ann-Marie