That is exactly the problem I am facing. Since apply templates matches
everything, the "steps" template has <xsl:apply-templates
select="a"/>, and has <xsl:apply-templates> at the end of
<fo:list-body>

Some test
Some other test
Some test 3
1. This is level1
Some test
Some other test
Some test 3

as has been stated before

<xsl:if test="a">
<xsl:apply-templates select="a"/>
</xsl:if>

is ___exactly__ the same thing as


<xsl:apply-templates select="a"/>

and this causes all a elements to be processed at this point, out of
their natural order. If you didn't do this your problem would go away.

David