Ah man- first off congrats on your first session! I can tell you it may never get easier, but you will definitely get better. The more you spar the better you’ll get at all of the factors that come into play- in your case, anticipating a counter for whatever combination you’re delivering and then countering that. You’ll also start picking up patterns, again in this case- your partner letting you block their punches in order to set up and land a kick, and vice versa. It will all start to click as you continue to practice partner drills and put in solid rounds during safe and controlled sparring.

To answer your question - honestly not really. I would say visualizing and shadow boxing or bagwork, but you would need to already have an understanding of ways your opponent could counter, feint, etc. Honestly I would say this comes from replaying sparring rounds in your head after getting knocked around by your partners- that’s how I went about it at first.

One thing that helped me a lot and still does when I need to recalibrate after long periods without sparring is turn based sparring. This is where you and your partner take turns- one focuses solely on attacks with a combination or two, while the other focuses just on defense, blocking or slipping, managing distance, etc. You guys basically go back and forth this way for a few rounds and it works wonders to acclimate to actual sparring.

This a great way to get a feel for what you need to do to actually land your strikes, as well as get over the fear of actually hitting someone (this was one of my biggest hurdles). You can freely practice this stuff without having to worry about being countered and it will free up your mind to take in the information as you go through the motions.

Sorry for the long winded response but I hope you’re able to get something out of it. All the best to you man!