top of page
About · The Iron Garden
A school built on one question.
For more than twenty-five years, Sifu Frank Matos has refined a single question: what actually works? Under Grandmaster Augustine Fong, that question became a discipline.
Mt. Vernon, NY
The Story
The name Iron Garden was etched into an arm — and a life.
The name was a tattoo before it was a school — a symbol of unwavering willpower fused with the inner stillness of a garden. Iron for the body. Garden for the mind.
Iron Garden was founded in the spirit of Grandmaster Ip Man — the teacher whose lineage shaped Bruce Lee and an entire generation of combat artists. We do not sell mystique. We pass on a compact, complete system that works.
The school exists for one purpose: to make Wing Chun real in the bodies of the people who walk through the door. Nothing more. Nothing less.
The Journey
A path measured in decades.
1990
The Beginning
Introduced to Wing Chun under Sifu Grados. The art never leaves.
2000s
Under Grandmaster Fong
Teaching what he was taught — practical, logical, transformative — from Mt. Vernon, NY.
Sifu Frank Matos begins his martial arts journey through Seido Karate and Western boxing.
1997
Wing Chun Finds Him
Years of refinement under Grandmaster Augustine Fong — strength without force.
Today
Iron Garden
Core Values
Four pillars. One school.
Lineage
Function
Tranquility
Brotherhood
Seniors sharpen by teaching. Beginners absorb by doing. No ego on the floor.
Stillness inside the storm. The garden inside the iron.
We teach what was passed down — not invented. Ip Man → Augustine Fong → Frank Matos.
Every motion is interrogated. If it does not work under pressure, it is not Wing Chun.
bottom of page