"Don’t Play Dead
You have always heard the rule that you should play dead if you ever happen to come face to face with a bear. However, this could get you killed in an instant! If you do see a bear nearby, use those legs to back away and run for your life!"
Survival tips by Nancy Smith of Sport Preacher
Nancy Smith is all wet, running from a bear, any bear will get you killed faster than anything else you might choose to do. I have been a bear guide (blacks and brown/grizzly) for 35 years. Bears are like cats, they chase and catch whatever is running from them. The guy who taught me to hunt bears (Joe Want, fairly infamous up here in Alaska, has been in National Geographic twice) was mauled by a brown bear, a sow with a cub when he was quite young, 16 years old, and playing dead saved his life.
Brown and grizzly bears are the same bear, generally, brown bears are coastal grizzlies.
I will relate to you a story experienced by another pretty well known bear guide I worked for, John Swiss (took no. 1, 2 and 4 polar bears in Boone and Crockett)
When we were still allowed to hunt polar bears (before the Marine Mammal act of 1972) John was hunting polar bears with a paying hunter. They were set up on the ice pack north and west of Nome Alaska waiting for a polar bear they were hunting to come into view from around a pressure ridge on the ice. When the bear came into view 90 or so yards away, he told the hunter to shoot. The hunter shot but wounded the bear in the shoulder. The bear started charging. John yelled "Shoot again" Nothing. John yelled "Shoot again" still nothing. John looked over at the hunter to see that he wasn't there, his rifle was laying on the ice where he had been. Looking back he saw the hunter running away. John turned back around to see the bear almost on top of him, he had been filming the whole thing and his rifle was on the ice below the camera tripod. He reached down to get his rifle and as he looked back up to check on the bear, all he could see was yellow polar bear belly fur over him. He thought he was had but as soon as the bear was there, it was gone again. The bear jumped completely over John and was chasing the hunter who was running away.
The bear caught the hunter and was hauling him in by his butt. John ran up and shot the huge bear in the neck.
You can read the whole story and others in his book "50 Years in Alaska" if you like.
The best way to turn a bear that is coming at you is to shoot into the ground (if you have a firearm) in front of the bear to spray the bear with dirt. This is more effective than shooting over his head, bears hate to be touched and spraying them with dirt has an amazing effect on them.