If you take your time, and you hold on to a counter (or a ballet bar), then it is usually not too difficult to get over the ball of your foot. If you're in a milonga (tango dance) and you take a step in the middle of a combination and suddenly need to stop, it's usually pretty hard. So really, the trick is learning that place in a Really clear way so that you can do this faster and more automatically.

Learning this means practicing it first extremely slowly, then slowly, then as you step until you can be more natural.