Odd, though things might be significantly different from large lot to large lot, my experience with cheaper blades is that I have the darndest time keeping them straight, or at least holding a consistent curve that isn't composed of about 3 s-curves, and they've always been rather soft to begin with...
When running the blade under foot, and I have seen this as typical of high quality blades, not cheaper one's, you have to really run a severe bend in the blade as you draw it up while running it under your foot. The bend is about almost 90 degrees as you pull it up. Its a nice bend that takes alot of the "oomph" out of a touch... I've seen alot of people trying to put bends in their blades and not NEARLY using enough bend as they run it under foot... They try dozens of times and only end up heating up the blade without putting the bend in it... More often than not they have that pained "I don't want to ruin my new blade" look on their faces too... But hey, for 5$ a blade you can try some pretty whacky experiments yourself
When you get better at it, you realize that you have to bend it more severely at the forte and then ease off the bend slightly as you approach the foible, speeding up your pull toward the tip, this gives you a very nice gentle arc, and not a dog-leg right at the weakest part of the blade.
If you do it right (enough bending under foot) the blade should be so hot after 4 or 5 cycles that you can't touch it... Let it cool off before you handle it, and don't use it till it is cool to the touch.
I'm not sure how much practice ou've had putting bends in blades, but the first time you see someone who knows how to do it, do it, you almost want to shout "Hey! what are you doing!don't break my blade!" it really looks that bad during the process.
A consistent bend early on in the life of a blade prolongs its life since the force absorbed thru a touch will be transmitted more evenly throughout the material... Using a cheap blade "straight" will typically force a stress bend to form initially and then as you continue to straighten out that kink, another forms somewhere else and that's where you get the s-bends that then counteract one another and serve up that unfortunate situation where a bendy blade with an "s" hits harder on impact then a perfectly straight blade since the straight blade only has to find one way to yield, but the s-bend tries to yield in both directions at once...
If you do it right, and can put a nice curve in a Vniti foil blade, trust me, doing it the same way will put a nice bend in a cheap 5$ blade... I was practicing lunge drills with a partner who was using a Vniti bladed foil with a gentle curve, and it was nothing to be touched repeatedly by it, the next partner I had had a brand new dry foil with no bend and it felt like a broom handle in the sternum each time he lunged... its still sore (don't drill partners intrinsically know that you should NOT touch your partner in the SAME spot every time!
Good luck
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