Step and Fold

There is plenty of information about this call, including examples, in Ceder's description and in Taminations. The following are some additional points to consider:

• Step and Fold is most commonly called from a wave, but other formations are possible and are used. You must be able to do the wave case without hesitation to dance C-1 at all, but you really need to be able to do it also from an inverted line and from a diamond for people to consider you a fully competent C-1 dancer. So don't try to ignore these cases as "weird" — study and practice them until you can do them all without hesitation. Note that the diamond case can occur within Little or Plenty (e.g., from an Hourglass), so review examples of such situations as well so you won't be totally surprised when they come up.
• This call sounds like it is part of a family "Step and Slide", "Step and Flip", "Step and Squeeze", etc. — but it's not. All the others involve the centers moving ahead one spot and the ends moving somehow into the center, with the result often being some kind of Z. Do not let the similarity of the name fool you. Step and Fold is completely different — the stepping is only half as far and it always ends in compact box.
• Although some definitions of this call refer to the action of the centers as "1/2 Press Ahead", there is always "breathing" involved, because the shape of the four-person group changes (from a line to a box, or from a diamond to a box), so it is never a pure 1/2 Press Ahead relative to the entire formation (or to "the matrix") — relative to the entire formation there is usually a different displacement forward and often also some adjustment sideways.
• A simpler way to think about the ending positions is that you are "forming a box" — and then the breathing applies to that resulting box, same as a box formed in any other way. Describing the action of Step and Fold in those terms, the centers move forward without turning to become the leaders of a box, while the ends fold to become trailers of a box.
• This call is sometimes used when there is a mini-wave on each side of the square (essentially a "disconnected wave") and without application of any concept (in particular, without application of "Concentric"). This is similar to other calls where the action only involves two people but depends on knowing which direction is "center" — e.g., from parallel lines "Ends Peel Off", or even, at Mainstream, "Bend the Line" when there really isn't a line of four. In such cases, the "dancer closer to the center" just does the stepping and the dancer on the very end does the folding, with the two of them forming a tandem.
• When the Concentric concept is used, the dancers in the outside group need to be careful about where they are going to be ending up, and the those doing the fold action need to be aware that they will be "going wide" to reach their spot. If you try to do the call first and then "adjust", you will be wasting time and possibly also confusing the other dancers.
• The same consideration applies to "All 8 Step and Fold", from a thar — the center dancers can just step ahead as usual and then "go a little further", but the end dancers need to start their action with a wide arc to avoid having to back up. The result in that case will be crossed boxes — mini-waves on squared set spots, with the original centers facing out and the original ends facing in.
• This call is actually very similar, conceptually, to "1/3 Recycle" — the roles of the two dancers are simply reversed. This is almost never pointed out by anybody, in class or otherwise, but some people find it helpful to know. So if it helps you too, there it is!