WHAT AM I PAYING GYM FEES FOR IF I HAVE NEVER BEEN?

I am super ****ed at this business. I have a condition of low immune system resistance to flu. I am not sickly. I have never been hospitalised, but I get flu often.

Once such bout of flu hit me just as I took a new contract with Gym Company. I was in bed for 6 weeks late in 2023. Subsequent to that I had to travel and be in Cape Town for long periods and they do not have a presence in Cape Town.

The long and short of it is that I have literally NEVER been to the gym on this new contract. Yet Gym Company want ALL the fees for every month since the contract was signed. Now I am fully aware that a signed contract is legally binding. But legally binding cannot be a one sided thing. The contract is an agreement that states that I will pay the gym for training there. By common law me never having trained there should mean that I don't owe Gym Company any money. They have rendered no services to me for which payment is due. Yet they have now started debiting my account.

The question I ask myself is WHAT AM I PAYING THEM FOR? They literally charge me for them being in existence. And that cannot be legal.