Blendshape Problem
 

I just finished rigging my very first character. I was setting up some poses for a quick animation and ran across a huge problem. When I try to go thru my blendshapes his head stretches from the pose I keyed, to the origin were I created the blendshape. It's like the blendshape isn't following the body. Can someone please help me?

you probably need to change the deformation order.

To change the deformation order, left click and hold on the “Inputs into the Selected Object” button in the Status Line (next to the snapping toggles) and choose “All Inputs” at the bottom of the pop-up menu that appears.

A List of Inputs window opens that displays all of the calculations that Maya is running as well as their order. To change the order, middle mouse click and drag an item to another position in the list.

Blendshape Problem 2
 

I thought for sure that would work but it didn't. Now when I go thru the shapes, the head stays in place but the geometry looks shredded like a crumbled piece of paper. If you can think of anything else I'll try that too, thanks for helping.

make sure when you create your duplicates for making blend shapes that you do not freeze their transformations.