How to section hair when curling ?

yesterday i tried curling my hair with the conair you curl infiniti curling wand and since the curls are sorta spiral shape,when i let down one of the straight hair sections, the curls would get tangled with the straight hair, thus ruining the curls when attempting to untangle the straight hair from the curls. How do i section my hair to avoid this? i have thick hair so i have to section a lot.