I don't want to just barge into a sparring server and make everyone watch me flop around on the ground for the entire thing so how can I practice with other people who don't mind?

Try finding a player who is also new at sparring if you can't find any, try playing with a friend who has experience insure he wouldn't mind playing with a beginner (I mean friends usually help others) .
If the 2 above don't work out try watching mocucha tutorial video, he has a sparring tutorial as well as a free running tutorial, after you have watched the videos either try self sparring by controlling uke and your own tori, or just practice keeping your balance while throwing punches and kicks with your own tori by himself. Once you think you have gathered enough experience go on multiplayer and just find anyone who is willing to spar with you.
Keep in mind that if you spar with very experienced player, they might throw at you some negative feedback, don't let that bring you down! Keep on trying and eventually you will get better.
Best of luck

find all the youtube vids on how to spar and watch them all every vid will help more after u finish try playing a mod called handball.tbm but at singleplayer this mod is rly helpfull it will learn u the ballance himself cuz when u lose the ballance and fall that means the other uke or the other player will throw the ball in and here u know that u lost ballance and u learn from ur fault, try to kick punch the ball and to keep ballance this will help at spars too when u wanna kick or punch so u keep the ballance good luck man.

Hi I hope this Isn't a closed topic, but I am a good sparer so if anyone needs some training come and find me... (Monk)Squigling

Practice is a great way to get better, like what I do (because I'm horrible at it) is open up xspar in single player, and fall down and test myself to see how fast I can get up. I hope that helped.

u can just one video click here to watch a good one (it taught me me how to spar but with time/training comes gud results so just keep up the good work and u can pm me if u need something

Exo give me a PM and we can set up a time so i can help you spar, im good at sparing but im not Great, we will learn together

There are lots of tutorials like
Mocuchas
Understanding your joints! By ConCon.
YouTube is full of help, check there.

Reading tutorials and stuff is not going to help you much, if you want to learn to spar you gotta understand how. The only way to do this is by doing A LOT of spars. Everyone sparer was at a stage where they were learning and the majority will understand your struggle. Playing good players can help you with tips, tips can be pretty useful, but them alone will not teach you to spar. Finding a sparing partner of your level can also help, this is just someone you regularly spar with.