sorry, its been a while.., no you do not move the pivot as such., you move the whole deformer unil its pivot is on the ground plane and the scale it until the squash handle is at the top of the...

pivot on the ground.., bend and squash deformer; parent them to your ball and then.., animate !

you must have instrutions in front of yu or are you attempting this on your own?

memory recall, yes pivot on ground.., dont remeber anything about shearing.., i only underatnd shearing in after effects, motion, FCP and the wool sheds.

yes you want it ti move back the head and...

yes, ; non-linear deformers/ squash deformer :)

select the object first .., its a bit tricky at first.., you can animate it from the channel box, 'bend' (I think thats right!?) context menu/ key...

pivot point?? use the squash deformer and remember to parent it to the ball